Polymorphism of Cocrystals: The Promiscuous Behavior of Agomelatine

Abstract

It has been traditionally suggested that polymorphism of cocrystals is a phenomenon seen less frequently than in monocomponent crystals. However, since the research on cocrystals has recently experienced a big growth, the number of solved structures of polymorphic cocrystals in the Cambridge Structural Database has increased, which can help to understand better whether a lower impact of this phenomenon exists or not in multicomponent crystals. In this paper we describe the cocrystal landscape of agomelatine, a particularly promiscuous drug able to cocrystallize with up to nine different coformers. Interestingly, two of those coformers have produced polymorphic cocrystals during the screening, which converts agomelatine into a new example that questions the traditional belief of the lesser impact of polymorphism in cocrystals and highlights the importance of polymorphism studies in cocrystal screening. Our work is completed with the determination of the crystal structures of the new forms from combined single crystal/laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data.