Drug specific, tuning of an ionic liquid's hydrophilic–lipophilic balance to improve water solubility of poorly soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients

Amphotericin B and itraconazole were used to demonstrate that ionic liquids can be designed or chosen to provide tunable hydrophilicity in one ion and lipophilicity in the other allowing one to match the structural requirements needed to solubilize poorly water soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients. These liquid, amphiphilic excipients could be used as both drug delivery systems and solubilization agents to improve the aqueous solubility of many drugs. The solubility in deionized water, simulated gastric fluid, simulated intestinal fluid, and phosphate buffer solution was greatly improved over current methods for drug delivery by utilizing designed ionic liquids as excipients.