NEWSLETTER #2
“Site Drug” has a booth at the upcoming
13th World Meeting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology
in Rotterdam (onsite) 28-31 March 2022
The Interreg project Site Drug will be exhibitor at the 13th World Meting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology onsite in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on 28-31 March 2022.
This is the largest European conference in the field of Pharmaceutical Technology and Drug Delivery. The World Meetings usually attract more than 1300 participants and 1000 submitted abstracts from all over the world, often about one third coming from the industry, one third from academia and one third are “young” scientists (PhD students and post-docs: “the next generation”).
The entire spectrum of topics, ranging from engineering aspects during the manufacturing process, the portfolio of commercially available excipients enabling formulation of a large variety of medicinal products, the underlying physico-chemical principles, cutting-edge characterization techniques as well as potential pitfalls and hurdles to be overcome during product development, manufacturing and characterisation will be addressed.
The conference will be held on 3.5 days. The accompanying exhibition ResearchPharm provides a cross-disciplinary platform for pharmaceutical scientists working in all fields of drug development in industry, academia and regulatory bodies. This exhibition is steadily growing and offers the possibility to present and learn about the newest trends and products in the area of pharmaceutical ingredients, developing and processing equipment, analytical technologies, medicinal products, medical devices and contract manufacturing.
The Meeting in Rotterdam will be the first major onsite conference in our field in Europe since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
For more information on the 13th World Meting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology please have a look at: https://www.worldmeeting.org/home.
3 Site Drug Researchers recognized as
“Highly Cited Researchers 2021”
Clarivate recently announced the names of the “Highly Cited Researchers 2021”:
Professors Abdul Basit and Simon Gaisford (University College London) and Juergen Siepmann (University of Lille) have received this prestigious award. They are working on innovative drug delivery systems for colon targeting and the treatment of inner ear diseases in the frame of the Site Drug project.
“Out of nearly 8 Million researchers in the world over the last decade, less than 1% have published multiple papers frequently cited by their peers that rank in the top 1% of citations for field and year. Since 2001, our experts have used Web of Science™ citation data to identify these very influential researchers.”
(Clarivate @ https://clarivate.com)
Hot Topic Day “Colon Targeting”
Together with the APGI, the Site Drug consortium organized a “Hot Topic Day” on “Colon Targeting” in Lille on 30th November 2021. More than 100 participants joined the meeting, which was held as an onsite meeting.
World-wide leading experts in the field gave comprehensive overviews on rapidly evolving topics:
- Colon Targeting: General Principles, Prof. Juergen Siepmann, University of Lille, College of Pharmacy, France
- Time-controlled formulation strategy for colon drug delivery, Prof. Andrea Gazzaniga, University of Milano, Italy
- To Hell and Back: Translating a Colon-targeted Drug Product from Academia to Clinical Practice, Prof. Abdul Basit, University College London, College of Pharmacy, UK
- Oral Gut-Targeted Delivery of Antibodies and Fusion Proteins, Dr. Vipul Yadav, Intract Pharma, London, UK
- Drug Delivery to the Colon: Insights from Imaging, Prof. Werner Weitschies, University of Greifswald, College of Pharmacy, Germany
- Advanced in vitro release testing for colon targeting, Dr. Frédéric Moens, ProDigest, Belgium
- Animal models for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Dr. Laurent Dubuquoy, University of Lille, School of Medecine, France
- Is the Dog a Suitable Model for Testing Oral Colonic Drug Delivery Systems?, Dr. Giustino di Pretoro, Janssen, Beerse, Belgium
The aim of colon targeting is to minimize drug release in the upper part of the gastro intestinal tract (stomach and small intestine), and to delivery the drug specifically to the colon. This type of systems can be very helpful to improve the efficacy of local drug treatments of the colon, such as chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (e.g. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis). Also, the way could be paved for a holy grail in our field: The oral delivery of biopharmaceuticals for systemic action.
A variety of strategies has been proposed to allow for colon targeting, including dosage forms with polymeric coatings exhibiting pH dependent solubility, systems which are preferentially degraded by enzymes secreted by bacteria present in the colon, and/or “time-controlled” devices, which release the drug after a pre-programmed lag-time (e.g., due to the rupturing of an outer film coating). A large spectrum of excipients and manufacturing techniques has been suggested with more or less promising results in vitro and in vivo.
Yet, the variability of drug release at the target site remains high, and numerous technical and biological challenges remain to be addressed and overcome. The role of the human microbiome is still not fully understood and premature drug release in the upper gastro intestinal tract is often not sufficiently controlled.
This “Hot Topic Day” allowed getting familiar with the current state of the art in this rapidly evolving field, including the latest clinical trials and novel delivery strategies with promising in vitro results and data obtained in animal studies. The academic and industrial speakers also presented most recent research findings, discussed current bottlenecks and gave future outlooks.
- Parenteral Local Controlled Drug Delivery
- Oral Local Controlled Drug Delivery
- Advanced Characterization Methods (in vitro & in vivo)
- Cutting-edge Manufacturing Techniques
Site Drug Event on 29.11.2022 in Lille
On 29th November 2022, the Site Drug project will jointly organized a “Hot Topic Day: Local Drug Delivery” with the APGI (“Association Galénique Industrielle” = “International Society of Drug Delivery Sciences and Technology”)in Lille.
Invited lectures will be given from world-wide leading researchers at the Universities of Cambridge, Delft, Ghent, Leiden and Lille, the University College London and industrial companies (including ProDigest). They will provide comprehensive overviews on the current states of the art in:
In addition, most recent research findings in the field of local controlled drug delivery will be reported. An industrial exhibition will accompany the event, as well as poster presentations.
The scientific programme and more detailed information will be available soon.
Site Drug researchers receive Best Paper Award
Annual Consortium Meeting in Hybrid Format: Onsite in Lille & online on 29th November 2021
Due to the COVID crisis and related travel restrictions in place, our Annual Consortium Meeting was organized in hybrid form. This photo shows the participants at the College of Pharmacy at the University of Lille:
