Probing the Effect of Fluorine on Hydrogen Bonding Interactions in a Pharmaceutical Hydrate Using Advanced Solid-State NMR

Structural studies of pharmaceutical hydrates are essential to understanding stability-related issues, especially during the heating process of formulation. A thorough understanding of the hydration and dehydration behavior of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) hydrate is also important since phase transitions can occur during the formulation process. This is because dehydration could result in a considerable rearrangement in the structure if water-API hydrogen bonding is present. We perform advanced solid-state NMR experiments on regorafenib monohydrate to investigate the role of fluorine in hydrogen bonding interaction, and the results are compared to its anhydrous form and its structural analogue, namely, sorafenib. Our results show that significant structural changes could not be observed on dehydration. Based on our study, it can be concluded that the introduction of fluorine restricts the intramolecular hydrogen bonding and the asymmetry in the structure of regorafenib monohydrate is absent, in comparison to sorafenib.