Spectroscopy in pharmaceutical development: an overview

ABSTRACTSpectroscopic techniques play a key role in the everyday work of the pharmaceutical analyst. In addition to the normal use of the various spectroscopie's for simple, routine analyses, a pharmaceutical analytical chemist might use spectroscopy to performa host of additional functions. These might include, for example, the characterization of a polymorphic substance by either X-ray diffraction or nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, the identification of a foreign material in a tablet dosage form byinfrared microspectroscopy, or the selection of a wavelength for liquid chroinatographic analysis by photodiode array ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. The following presentation is meant toacquaint the non-pharmaceutical chemist with some of the waysspectroscopy is utilized in the pharmaceutical analysis research and development laboratory.1. SPECTROSCOPY IN PHARMACEUTICAL ANALYSIS Pharmaceutical analysis is an intense science incorporating the full gamut of analytical techniques. These may be broken down intothe following categories:—