title: New forms of old drugs: improving without changing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In a short approach, we want to present the improvements that have recently been done in the world of new solid forms of known active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The different strategies will be addressed, and successful examples will be given.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This overview presents a possible step to overcome the 10-15 years of hard work involved in launching a new drug in the market: the use of new forms of well-known APIs, and improve their efficiency by enhancing their bioavailability and pharmacokinetics. It discusses some of the latest progresses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We want to present, in a brief overview, what recently has been done to improve the discovery of innovative methods of using well-known APIs, and improve their efficiency. Multicomponent crystal forms have shown to be the most promising achievements to accomplish these aims, by altering API physico-chemical properties, such as solubility, thermal stability, shelf life, dissolution rate and compressibility. API-ionic liquids (ILs) and their advantages will be briefly referred. An outline of what has recently been achieved in metal drug coordination and in drug storage and delivery using bio-inspired metal-organic frameworks (BioMOFs) will also be addressed.
authors: Centro de Química Estrutural, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors: Sofia
authors: S
authors: Domingos
authors: Centro de Química Estrutural, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.|Centre for research in ceramics and composite materials (CICECO), Department of Chemistry, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors: Vânia
authors: V
authors: André
authors: Centro de Química Estrutural, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors: Sílvia
authors: S
authors: Quaresma
authors: Centro de Química Estrutural, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors: Inês C B
authors: IC
authors: Martins
authors: Centro de Química Estrutural, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.|Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL), Lisbon, Portugal.
authors: M Fátima
authors: MF
authors: Minas da Piedade
authors: Centro de Química Estrutural, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors: Maria Teresa
authors: MT
authors: Duarte
mesh_terms: D002626:Chemistry, Pharmaceutical; D003460:Crystallization; D006801:Humans; D052578:Ionic Liquids / Q000737:chemistry; D008670:Metals / Q000737:chemistry; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000737:chemistry*; D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical
chemical_list: D052578:Ionic Liquids; D008670:Metals; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations
keywords: API metal coordination; drug performance; multicomponent crystals; solid forms; structure-property relationship