The preformulation studies should focus on those physicochemical properties of the active compound in the drug that could affect drug performance and development of an efficacious dosage form. A thorough understanding of these properties may ultimately provide a rationale for formulation design. The first critical step on preformulation is to determine whether a compound has an amorphous or crystalline structure. This information will have implications for a drug's stability and solubility, and guide decisions concerning the appropriate dosage form or formulation and how it is packaged, handled and stored.

This presentation will discuss the algorithm and application of Powder Solve software (Accelyrs) in the crystal structure determination of nicotine substrate. Nicotine substrate was widely used in the formulation of smoking control products within GSK consumer healthcare products. To resolve crystal unit forms for nicotine substrate, single-crystal X-ray diffraction is the most common method for solving crystal structures. However, this method requires large single crystals that are not always available and is very expensive and time-consuming. After getting the X-ray powder diffraction data using X-ray powder diffractometry, Powder Solve was used to determine crystal structures with the high quality powder data easily and accurately. Five different crystalline unit cell forms: Tetragonal, Monoclinic, Triclinic, Orthormbic, and Hexagonal, for nicotine substrate were resolved. This information will have implications for smoking control products' stability and solubility and guide decisions concerning the appropriate dosage form or formulation and how it is packaged, handled and stored. Some following research the need to be done: thermo-analysis and dissolution testing.