Discovery and Analysis of New Cocrystal Solid Forms of the Anti-HIV Drug: Emtricitabine

Emtricitabine (trade name: Emtriva) is an anti-HIV prevention and treatment drug. Emtricitabine (EMT) is used along with Tenofovir to form the combination-drug, Truvada, which is extremely effective in the prevention and treatment of HIV. Emtricitabine works by inhibiting reverse transcriptase and is conventionally administered orally in a tablet. Only one solid form corresponding to the pure drug is currently known. Cocrystallization is a method of creating novel solid forms by combining two or more components. In this context, cocrystallization is a good strategy to generate new and enhanced solid forms of Emtricitabine. Through our work with Emtricitabine, we generated new cocrystals with bipyridines using mechanochemical techniques. The new solids were studied and characterized using X-ray diffraction techniques such as powder X-ray diffraction and single crystal X-ray diffraction. We anticipate our work could lead to the design of improved solids of Emtricitabine that could be used in new administration routes of the drug.