A new solvate of afatinib, a specific inhibitor of the ErbB family of tyrosine kinases

Afatinib (systematic name: N-{4-(3-chloro-4-fluoro­anilino)-7-[(tetra­hydro­furan-3-yl)­oxy]quinazolin-6-yl}-4-(di­methyl­amino)­but-2-enamide), is a specific in­hibitor of the ErbB family of tyrosine kinases. The free base form crystallizes from aceto­nitrile as a mixed water–aceto­nitrile solvent, C(24)H(25)ClFN(5)O(3)·0.25C(2)H(3)N·2H(2)O. It crystallizes with two independent mol­ecules (A and B) in the asymmetric unit of the chiral space group P42(1)2, but exhibits close to perfect pseudo-inversion symmetry, emulating P4/ncc that relates the two mol­ecules to each other. Exact inversion symmetry is however broken by swapping of oxygen and CH(2) moieties of the outer tetra­hydro­furanyl substituents of the two independent mol­ecules. This can, in turn, be traced back to C—H⋯N and C—H⋯O inter­actions of the aceto­nitrile solvent mol­ecules with the tetra­hydro­furan oxygen and CH(2) units. In the crystal, neighboring mol­ecules are connected via N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the secondary amine and the amide keto O atom. Additional hydrogen bonds are formed through the water solvent mol­ecules, which are engaged in O—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds connecting to the di­methyl­amino N atom, the amide keto O atom, and one of the quinazoline N atoms of a neighboring mol­ecule, leading to an intricate three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded superstructure. There are two types of channels stretching along the direction of the c axis; one along the fourfold rotational axis, occupied by aceto­nitrile solvent mol­ecules situated on that axis, and parallel channels which are not occupied by any solvent.