Predicting the Crystallization Propensity of Drug-Like Molecules.

Predicting the crystallization propensity of drug-like molecules is one of the most significant challenges facing pharmaceutical scientists today. Despite the importance of being able to understand what structural features of a molecule (polarity, molecular size, etc.) and which experimental conditions (temperature, concentration, etc.) permit a molecule to crystallize, there has been very little published work focused on this topic. This commentary provides a short overview of recent progress in this area and points to potential experimental and computational approaches that might be used in the future.