Thermodynamics of Pharmaceutical Systems: An introduction to Theory and Applications, 2nd Edition

"In this 2nd edition, Professor Connors continues his career-long commitment to ensuring that pharmacy students comprehend the complexity of the chemistry that is so central to the practice of pharmacy and the overall disciplines that comprise the Pharmaceutical Sciences. While this book will continue to be invaluable in those instances where required or elective courses focused on mechanisms and pharmaceutical systems remain a part of the Professional Pharmacy curriculum, it also could prove to be a unique resource for first year pharmaceutics graduate students who enter these programs with undergraduate majors in the biological, rather than the chemical sciences.... Consistent with the treatment of thermodynamics, kinetics and analytical chemistry in previous textbooks, the authors lay out a logical systematic approach that allow students to focus on basic definitions and principles, which then build an understanding through increasingly complex problems.... While this text was developed for pharmacy students, its applicability to first year graduate students is noteworthy. The pharmaceutical sciences have always struggled with the varied backgrounds of a diverse student population and in most cases background material in either the physical chemical or biological sciences, is desirable depending upon their undergraduate backgrounds. With the increasingly biological orientation of the pharmaceutical sciences a large number of incoming students have not had the basics of physical chemistry or thermodynamics which are fundamental to drug discovery, design and understanding mechanism of transport and action in the body. In addition, the industry as well as the Food and Drug Administration through its Critical Path initiative express an urgent need to move towards much scientific orientation of formulation and manufacture to try to reduce the extensive time needed to develop, test and eventually market a drug often due to historic trial and error processes based upon previously approved processes. This textbook could fill that void nicely in many graduate programs and lay the foundation for higher level courses."
—Dr. Jordan Cohen, Vice President for Research, University of Iowa