Excipients are included in dosage forms to aid manufacture, administration or absorption. Other reasons for inclusion concern product differentiation, appearance enhancement or retention of quality.1 They rarely, if ever, possess pharmacological activity and are accordingly loosely categorized as ‘inert.’ However, excipients can initiate, propagate or participate in chemical or physical interac...

Small-angle scattering (SAS) is a versatile analytical technique that provides detailed structural information from sample at the length scale of nanometers. In this overview, we discuss basic principles SAS and diverse applications in characterization pharmaceutical materials. Examples include identification liquid-crystalline mesophase drugs, influence excipient microstructure on final produc...