Senior Vice President, Research & Development
Catalent Pharma Solutions
What is the Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute?
The Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute brings together the knowledge of the world’s leading experts in drug development, delivery and formulation—within Catalent, the industry and academia. This collaborative approach is designed to help bring better treatments to market by advancing the development and adoption of applied drug delivery technologies.
The Institute aims to promote innovation, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration between industry leaders, academic experts, customers and regulators to enhance understanding of available, emerging, and future drug delivery technologies and improve patient care.
Why did Catalent launch the Institute?
We created the Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute because we believe that applying drug delivery technologies to the drug delivery process early would allow more products to market faster as better treatments. Majority of molecules in drug pipelines today are challenging from bioavailability, formulation or therapeutic profile delivery stand point. Collaboration between industry and academia—across the globe—is the key to enhancing the application of available, emerging and future drug delivery technologies to overcome these challenges and improve patient care.
Catalent identified an area of this industry where leadership and support was needed to improve the way we innovate and share knowledge within the drug delivery and formulation industry.
What does Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute hope to achieve over the next five years?
In a nutshell the Institute will strive to accomplish two major tasks: to increase the number of available successful drug delivery technologies and to increase their application through better understanding and education. For the first we will aim to advance drug delivery with successful technology collaborations with innovators and academia. For the second we hope to train hundreds of drug developers and future scientists (graduate students now) on the latest in drug delivery technology applications and enhance industry understanding with publications, events and research.
What are some of the key programs and initiatives that the Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute will be offering in 2013?
Industry education and dialogue will be hallmarks of the Institute. Each year, Catalent experts will collaborate with academics to bring a series of free, informative seminars and training programs to the pharmaceutical industry, academia and regulators around the world.
There will be a series of Institute-led initiatives designed to enhance understanding of drug delivery and inspire the next generation of science leaders. These initiatives, which will target both industry and academic audiences, will include:
- Applied Drug Delivery Events and Training Programs for Industry
- Innovation and Research Collaborations with Universities and Technology Companies
- Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute Scientific Journal
- Science Leaders of Tomorrow University Partnership Program
- Student Drug Delivery Guide
- Annual Drug Delivery Landscape Technology Survey
- Scientific Communications
How will the Institute work with Academia in a way that supports the pharmaceutical industry?
Innovation and applied drug delivery research through global collaboration with universities is one of the cornerstones of the Institute.
We currently have strong partnerships with leading academic institutions around the world. These relationships promote the development of new, innovative technologies in the fields of Taste Masking and Bioavailability Enhancement via Particle Engineering, Hot Melt Extrusion, Oral Vaccines and Oral Macromolecules. We welcome additional collaborations and technology partnerships to help bring research to market faster.
We will also partner with Universities to educate the life science R&D leaders of tomorrow with research competitions, scholarships, student seminars and educational materials.
How will the Institute help emerging companies and research organizations?
The Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute will pursue a multi-tiered approach of seed funding, strategic counsel and educational programs to advance the adoption of emerging technologies. It’s through this type of support that emerging companies will benefit from the Institute’s programs and activities.