Comparative Physical Study of Three Pharmaceutically Active Benzodiazepine Derivatives: Crystalline versus Amorphous State and Crystallization Tendency

Chemical derivatization and amorphization are two possible strategies to improve the solubility and bioavailability of drugs, which is a key issue for the pharmaceutical industry. In this contribution, we explore whether both strategies can be combined by studying how small differences in the molecular structure of three related pharmaceutical compounds affect their crystalline structure and melting point (Tm), the relaxation dynamics in the amorphous phase, and the glass transition temperature (Tg), as well as the tendency toward recrystallization. Three benzodiazepine derivatives of almost same molecular mass and structure (Diazepam, Nordazepam and Tetrazepam) were chosen as model compounds. Nordazepam is the only one that displays N–H···O hydrogen bonds both in crystalline and amorphous phases, which leads to a significantly higher Tm (by 70–80 K) and Tg (by 30–40 K) compared to those of Tetrazepam and Diazepam (which display similar values of characteristic temperatures). The relaxation dynamics in the amorphous phase, as determined experimentally using broadband dielectric spectroscopy, is dominated by a structural relaxation and a Johari–Goldstein secondary relaxation, both of which scale with the reduced temperature T/Tg. The kinetic fragility index is very low and virtually the same (mp ≈ 32) in all three compounds. Two more secondary relaxations are observed in the glass state: the slower of the two has virtually the same relaxation time and activation energy in all three compounds, and is assigned to the inter-enantiomer conversion dynamics of the flexible diazepine heterocycle between isoenergetic P and M conformations. We tentatively assign the fastest secondary relaxation, present only in Diazepam and Tetrazepam, to the rigid rotation of the fused diazepine–benzene double ring relative to the six-membered carbon ring. Such motion appears to be largely hindered in glassy Nordazepam, possibly due to the presence of the hydrogen bonds. Supercooled liquid Tetrazepam and Nordazepam are observed to crystallize into their stable crystalline form with an Avrami exponent close to unity indicating unidimensional growth with only sporadic nucleation, which allows a direct assessment of the crystal growth rate. Despite the very similar growth mode, the two derivatives exhibit very different kinetics for a fixed value of the reduced temperature and thus of the structural relaxation time, with Nordazepam displaying slower growth kinetics. Diazepam does not instead display any tendency toward recrystallization over short periods of time (even close to Tm). Both these observations in three very similar diazepine derivatives provide direct evidence that the kinetics of recrystallization of amorphous pharmaceuticals is not a universal function, at least in the supercooled liquid phase, of the structural or the conformational relaxation dynamics, and it is not simply correlated with related parameters such as the kinetic fragility or activation barrier of the structural relaxation. Only the crystal growth rate, and not the nucleation rate, shows a correlation with the presence or absence of hydrogen bonding.