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The formation of salts is considered a simple strategy to

modify the physicochemical properties of active pharmaceutical

ingredients. In this study, seven novel binary and

ternary organic salts of ciprofloxacin (CP) were prepared

with benzoic acid (BA), acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), p-coumaric

acid (PCMA) and p-aminosalicylic acid (PASA). They

were characterized by spectroscopic techniques and differential

scanning calorimetry. Solubility and partition coefficients

values were also measured. Evaluation of the antimicrobial

activity of the organic salts against Staphylococcus

aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis revealed that most of

the new salts had higher antimicrobial activity than CPHCl

against both strains. The most active compounds

against S. epidermidis and S. aureus were CP-PASA and CPPCMA,

resp., which were up to fourteen times more potent

than parent CP-HCl. Our findings indicated a strong correlation

between the lipophilicity of the formed salts and

their antimicrobial activity and showed that an optimum

value of lipophilicity (log P = 0.75) seemed to be necessary

to maximize the antimicrobial activity. These findings

highlighted the improved physical, thermal and antimicrobial

properties of the new salts of CP that can aid in providing

higher bioavailability than CP-HCl.​