Data on chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine content in compounded oral suspension after filtration and centrifugation

Abstract The COVID-19 outbreak is spreading worldwide pushing the national healthcare systems to find effective protocols to prevent contagion and to reduce the patients’ mortality and the severity of long-term effects. In the absence of authorised pharmacological treatments, chloroquine, and hydroxychloroquine, which are known as anti-malaria drugs, had been widely used off-label until concerns about their efficacy/safety limited their use in hospitalized patients affected by severe COVID-19. Regardless of their clinical use, their manipulation is necessary since the pure drug substance is not always promptly available and most of the drug products available on the market are tablets designed to be ingested; no liquid dosage forms are available. These are needed for children and the enteral nutrition of inpatients of intensive care units. Considering that both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are BCS class I, proper procedures for purifying the preparation from the insoluble excipients may be adopted to avoid clogging of a nasogastric tube and to reduce the drug content variability in the administered doses. The data in this article indicate that compounded oral suspensions containing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine can be filtered and/or centrifuged without altering the drug assay of the preparation.