Lovastatin (LOV) is a drug used to treat hypercholesterolemia. Recent studies have\nidentified its antioxidant effects and potential use in the treatment of some types of cancer. However,\nthe low bioavailability related to its poor water solubility limits its use in solid oral dosage forms.\nTherefore, to improve the solubility of LOV three eutectic systems of LOV with the carboxylic\nacids benzoic (BEN), salicylic (SAL) and cinnamic (CIN) were obtained. Both binary phase and\nTammann diagrams were constructed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data of mixtures\nprepared from 0.1 to 1.0 molar ratios. Binary mixtures and eutectics were prepared by liquid-assisted\ngrinding. The eutectics were further characterized by DSC and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD),\nFourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The\nLOV-BEN, LOV-SAL and LOV-CIN system formed a eutectic at an LOV mole fraction of 0.19,\n0.60 and 0.14, respectively. The systems exhibited improvements in LOV solubility, becoming more\nsoluble by five-fold in the LOV-SAL system and approximately four-fold in the other two systems.\nConsidering that the solubility enhancements and the carboxylic acids used are generally recognized\nas safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the LOV eutectic systems are promising\nmaterials to be used in a solubility enhancement strategy for pharmaceutical product formulation.
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