Polymorphism of Drugs

Polymorphism is the phenomenon of materials with the same chemical structure having different crystalline structures. The different crystal forms of polymorphic materials have different properties, including solubility and stability, so evaluating polymorphism is an important part of drug development. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is an effective technique for investigating polymorphism that requires no sample pretreatment and performs measurements quickly. DSC can be used to evaluate polymorphism based on different crystal shapes having different melting points and heat of fusions.Here, we describe an example use of DSC to analyze polymorphs.