ABSTRACT
It may be that poor wetting is also considered in terms of processability, especially with respect to difficulties in dispersing the material in fluids.Whilst many practitioners would not consider interfacial interactions as a routine part of formulation development, certain companies now do consider the use of extensive bodies of physico-chemical data in order to make a first “guess” at the most suitable formulation. This is the basic concept of expert systems, which utilise a database for excipients, and match these to the properties of the new drug which needs to be formulated. Rowe and Upjohn (1993) have recently described expert systems for pharmaceutical formulation, and noted that: “..formulation is a highly specialised task requiring specific knowledge and often years of experience. Expertise and knowledge of this form are not easily documented, generally being passed by word of mouth.” “..retirement or premature death can lead to a loss of irreplaceable commercial knowledge, and personal preferences often result in inconsistencies of approach.”
