Felton L.: Remington: Essentials of Pharmaceutics
Felton L. Remington: Essentials of Pharmaceutics. Pharmaceutical Press; 2013, 772pp, $69.00 (softcover), ISBN 9780857111050. This new pharmaceutics book, edited by Dr. Linda Felton, is a snap shot of the previous Remington's pharmaceutical sciences textbook with many of the same chapter authors. This edition has 40 chapters and it focuses on the conventional subjects normally taught in pharmaceutics; ie, pharmaceutical calculations, physical pharmacy, and classical dosage form design. The new graphical design of data, added in the form of tables and figures, was intriguing. This book has a wealth of new information that will enhance the knowledge and learning experience of pharmacy students. Chapter 1 shares the information resources available in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences, and educates students on how to explore the literature, databases, and textbooks. Chapter 2 provides a brief discussion on the analysis of medicinals. It explains the criteria for USP monographs specifications, methods validation, and the type of analytical methods utilized to analyze different dosage forms. Chapter 3 links quality assurance and quality control. It explains the differences between quality control and quality assurance in terms of functions and responsibilities and what documentations are required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Chapter 4 focuses on the stability of pharmaceutical products. It emphasizes the stability conditions (temperature and humidity) required by FDA to test pharmaceutical products and the approach to determining shelf life from an actual stability data. Chapter 5 reviews bioavailability and bioequivalence and the factors that affect dissolution and absorption. The chapter explains what is required to conduct a bioequivalence study and the criteria for bioequivalence linked with clinical examples. Chapter 6 goes deep into dissolution science and explains the differences between dissolution rate of solid particles or tablets. It then explores the influence of excipients and dissolution media on dissolution rate of drugs in tablets. Chapter 7 focuses on modern-day drug discovery and development from the industrial perspective. The chapter discusses the evolution of pharmaceutical research organizations and the biological testing that is conducted to ensure safety and efficacy of new drug entities. Chapter 8 goes through the new drug approval process and the FDA requirement for an IND and NDA, as well as the different development phases of new drug molecules. Chapter 9 summarizes metrology and pharmaceutical calculations. In this chapter, the author discussed the history of pharmacy calculations and the early introduction of the metric system into modern measurements. The chapter has eye-capturing tables and graphs that show different weight and volume units and the conversions from each unit to the other. At the end of this chapter, there is a brief comparison between different balances used in pharmacy and several examples to illustrate pharmacy calculations for students' own practice. Chapter 10 discusses the diverse applications of statistics in pharmacy. Beyond explanations of different statistical parameters and statistical significance tests, the chapter looks at the application of statistical design in modern clinical studies. Chapter 11 is molecular structure, properties, and states of matter. The authors of this chapter discuss the different types of bonds, bonds formation, and structural outlook of metallocenes, isomers, conformations, and enantiomers. In the middle of the chapter, the authors discussed intermolecular forces and their influence on the physical state of matter. The chapter also discusses the different type of solids (crystalline and amorphous) and their thermodynamic transitions. Chapter 12 provides a thermodynamics overview. The author discusses the laws of thermodynamics, defines the energetic parameters (enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs free energy), and then explains how thermodynamics influences equilibria, solubility, heat of solution, partition coefficient, and protein binding. …