VCD of Enantiomeric Drug Molecules
In 1996, the FDA began to require pharmaceutical manufacturers to understand the structural details of enantiomeric drug molecules and to characterize each stereoisomer independently. This requires that, in addition to a chemical formula and structure, the absolute configuration of each molecule is well-known.
Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) is the PEM-based technique that allows researchers to get the required information. A zinc selenide PEM is provided by Hinds as an attachment to most commercial FTIRs. This allows the user to see the infrared spectrum of the different enantiomers as separate spectra.
The resulting spectral information is useful in several ways. First, it allows the pharmaceutical producer to quantitate the amount of each isomer and to see how pure the product is. In addition, in conjunction with ab initio calculations carried out by programs like Gaussian (Gaussian, Inc., Pittsburg, PA), the spectra may be used to prove the absolute configuration of these structures.
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