• Question: How does medicine become composed into a liquid?

    Asked by anon-250430 on 13 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Sophie Arthur

      Sophie Arthur answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      My husband works in drug formulation so he has helped me to answer this one.

      Some drugs already come in liquid form from when they are made in the pharmaceutical labs. Then they get diluted to safe concentrations and other bits are added to make them taste nicer and last longer.

      Drugs could also arrived as soluble or insoluble solids. Soluble ones are then diluted into water or glucose liquids and then go through the same process.

    • Photo: Ioana Grigoras

      Ioana Grigoras answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      I’m not really sure, as I have no idea how medicine is produced. I assumed that it is easier to transport it as a powder and then they would dissolve that in liquids when the medicine needs to be administered in a liquid form.
      Sophie’s answer was particularly helpful and she seems to know a lot more about this than I do!

    • Photo: Sarah Clarke

      Sarah Clarke answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      Hi, I’m not at an expert and Sophie’s answer is very thorough! When we make a drug in liquid form we still have to be sure it still work as well as when it is a solid (sometimes making something as a liquid might change how it works, or might change how easily it gets to the part of the body it is needed in). So form some drugs, at the moment it might not be possible to turn them into liquids as it wouldn’t work so well. This is definitely something I am interested in because I am a children’s doctor and it can be difficult for children to take their medicine if it isn’t a liquid. These are some of the reasons why we have whole teams of scientists whose main job is to test drug “formulations” (as in whether they can be a liquid composition, tablet or an injection etc).

    • Photo: Nuru Noor

      Nuru Noor answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      Answers below are all really good – if you are interested in this then there is a branch of chemistry called “medicinal chemistry” which is definitely worth thinking about as a cool future career 👍😎

    • Photo: Kate Mitchell

      Kate Mitchell answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      Great question to which I do not know the answer! But thanks Sophie for answering 🙂

    • Photo: M S

      M S answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      So this all chemistry. It is based on how you mix these chemicals together. What state it is in. How to make them easy to give etc

    • Photo: Robyn Kiy

      Robyn Kiy answered on 19 Mar 2020:

      Great question! This is something that I didn’t really consider before working in drug formulation, but now find really interesting.

      As Sophie said, some drugs are already in liquid form. Then, depending on the route of administration (e.g. if the medicine will be drank or injected), different chemicals are added to improve the properties of the medicine. These inactive ingredients are often known as ‘excipients’, and can be added to improve taste, stability (making drugs last longer), act as an antibacterial, or even to improve appearance!

      The same process is carried out for soluble solid drugs, after they have been dissolved in a liquid.

      Drug formulation is really important, as making tiny changes to the ‘ingredients’ in a medicine can have huge impacts on how well it lasts over time!

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