The structural resemblance strategy
is an often-employed principle
to guide the discovery of novel pharmaceutical cocrystals and salts.
Here, baricitinib (BAR) was selected as a model compound due to the
existence of abundant heterocyclic nitrogen sites (proton acceptor
sites) to form crystalline complexes with four structurally similar
and pharmaceutically acceptable C4-dicarboxylic acids, maleic acid
(MAL), fumaric acid (FUM), succinic acid (SUC), and l-tartaric
acid (TAR). Crystal structures, intermolecular interactions, and physicochemical
properties of each resulting form were analyzed to demonstrate the
similarity and diversity. BAR–MAL and BAR–TAR are two
salts with stoichiometric ratios of 2:2 and 2:1, respectively. BAR–FUM
and BAR–SUC are isostructural cocrystals with a stoichiometric
ratio of 1:0.5. All of these new solid-state forms demonstrated excellent
phase stability against hydration, reduced hygroscopicity, and slight
solubility improvements, supporting their usage as alternative forms
of BAR for generic drug development.