Multicomponent crystals of an artemisinin derivative and cinchona alkaloids for use as antimalarial drugs

Abstract

Pharmaceutical multicomponent crystals (MCCs) including salts and co-crystals of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), are an active focus of research to improve various physicochemical properties of drugs. In this work, we demonstrate that the pharmaceutical artesunate (AS), a derivative of artemisinin (ART), forms a 1 : 1 salt with two cinchona alkaloids: quinine (QN) and cinchonidine (CND), representing the first report of MCCs combining two major types of antimalarial drugs.