Daidzein cocrystals: An opportunity to improve its biopharmaceutical parameters

The present study involves the contribution of cocrystallization towards the modification of the biopharmaceutical parameters of poorly watersoluble plant-originated isoflavone, daidzein (DAID). The cocrystals were prepared with GRAS status coformers i.e., isonicotinamide, theobromine and cytosine using mechanochemical grinding and characterized by various analytical techniques (DSC, FT-IR, PXRD and solid-state NMR). Crystal structures were obtained from PXRD data using BIOVIA Materials Studio software and compared in terms of supramolecular motifs. An additional qualitative and quantitative insight into interactions between both components of the cocrystal illustrated the presence of OH center dot center dot center dot N and OH center dot center dot center dot O=C heterosynthons and revealed a stabilizing role of hydrogen bonding. The cocrystals were further evaluated for their solubility, intrinsic dissolution and in vivo profile. Solubility and dissolution studies of pure daidzein and its cocrystals, namely daidzein-isonicotinamide (DIS), daidzein-cytosine (DCYT) and daidzein-theobromine (DTB) exhibited an almost 2-fold improvement. Evaluation of maximum concentration (Cmax) of cocrystals reveals that the DIS cocrystal shows the highest Cmax of 1848.7 ng/ml followed by DCYT cocrystal (1614.9 ng/ml) and DTB cocrystal (1326.0 ng/ml) in comparison to DAID which has a Cmax 870.5 ng/ml. Each of these cocrystals showed significant enhancement in in vivo and in vitro activities in comparison to daidzein. Thus, this report suggests cocrystallization as a viable approach to resolve the solubility and bioavailability issues that circumvent the use of a therapeutically potential isoflavone, daidzein.