Production of pazopanib hydrochloride nanoparticles (anti-kidney cancer drug) using a supercritical gas antisolvent (GAS) method

Abstract

Supercritical fluid-based methods have been receiving increasing popularity in the production of pharmaceutical nanoparticles due to their ability to control the size and distribution of the particles and offer high purity products. The gas anti-solvent method is one of the methods in which a supercritical fluid serves as an anti-solvent. The aim of this work is to develop pazopanib hydrochloride nanoparticles as an anti-cancer agent by the supercritical GAS method. For this purpose, nanoparticles were produced at different temperatures (313, 323 and 333 K), pressures (10, 13 and 16 MPa), and initial solute concentrations (12, 22 and 32 mg ml⁻¹) employing the Box–Behnken design. The results showed that pressure had the most significant effect on the particle size. The average initial particle size of unprocessed pazopanib hydrochloride was about 37.5 ± 8.7 μm. The optimum process parameter values were determined to obtain the smallest particle size using the BBD method. The parameters were optimized at 320 K, 16 MPa, and 12.6 mg ml⁻¹. The average particle size was 311.1 nm, close to the predicted value of 302.3 nm. FTIR analysis indicated that the chemical structure remained unaltered. Furthermore, DSC and XRD results confirmed the reduction in particle size.