Featured Articles
IMMUNE ACTIVATORS - Enhancing Cell Adhesion to Safely Improve Effectiveness of Vaccines & Cancer Immunotherapies
Siddhartha De, PhD, and Peter Vanderslice, PhD, present their research on the use of proprietary, orally available compounds that can activate the immune system to enhance the effectiveness of vaccines as well as immuno-oncology therapies for cancer, especially in patient populations that are most vulnerable to disease.
MICROFLUIDIC ENCAPSULATION TECHNOLOGY - Achieving Reliable siRNA Drug Delivery for Inflammatory Diseases & Tumor Targeting by Nanoencapsulation
Olivia Merkel, PhD, and Christoph Zimmermann, PhD student, discuss the benefits of microfluidic encapsulation technology for gene silencing applications in cancer immunology and inflammatory diseases, where siRNA can potentially be used to downregulate genes associated with these pathologies.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - Pace Analytical® Life Sciences: Delivering Science Better; Advancing Novel Therapies Through the Clinic to Commercialization
Frank Tagliaferri, PhD, Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development at PLS, discusses his experiences with the company and its recent growth.
ORAL MUCOSAL IMMUNOTHERAPY - Oral Mucosal Delivery of Allergenic Proteins for Inducing Tolerance in Food Allergic Individuals
William R. Reisacher, MD, highlights some of the differences between food allergy immunotherapy via the oral mucosal route versus exposure through the stomach and intestines.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY - ESCP, Estimating Product Performance Part 1 - Playground Physics
Josef Bossart, PhD, introduces, in a series of short articles, a qualitative model to help understand and visualize the potential of a product with prescribers, patients, and payors. This simple model can help weed out product ideas that may at first glance seem attractive but offer little potential in the real world.
SPECIAL FEATURE - Outsourcing Analytical Testing: Innovative Drugs Spike Demand for Advanced Analysis
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin asked some of the key analytical testing providers to describe their offerings in several key areas and what advanced analytical testing techniques they can offer to pharma clients.
FORMULATION FORUM - Oral Controlled Delivery of Poorly Water-Soluble Drugs
Jim Huang, PhD, discusses how understanding key biopharmaceutical properties in relationship to drug absorption and elimination plays a critical role in successful design of CR dosage forms from discovery to first-in-human with a shorter timeline and lower development costs.
TUB PACKAGING - Why Double-Bagged Tubs Are an Issue for High-Speed Filling
Tilman Roedle says variation in tub packaging continues to create financial and operational challenges for the entire downstream supply chain, and it’s time for the industry to align on packaging configuration requirements that make tubs fully processable on automated lines.
MULTI-PARTICULATE MANUFACTURING - How Does Experiment Design Affect Multi-Particulates Manufacturing?
Namrata Vora, MS, Danica Cartwright, Karthikeyan Selvaraj, MPharm, and Ryan Larmon, MS, discuss how the careful application of design of experiment studies is an invaluable tool in proving the design space of complex formulations and manufacturing processes.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - BiologIC Technologies: The Future Microsoft for the Biorevolution
Richard Vellacott, CEO of BiologIC Technologies, discusses his company’s unique technology and its applications in the future of medicine and wider fields of synthetic biology.
FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT - The Role of Excipient Selection in the Development of Orally Disintegrating Tablets
Torkel Gren, PhD, reviews the benefits that orally disintegrating products can bring to patients and developers and assesses the impact that excipient selection can have on the development of successful products.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - Fortress Biotech, Inc.: Looking for the Muffin Tops
Lindsay A. Rosenwald, MD, Chairman, President, and CEO of Fortress Biotech, discusses how his medical and financial knowledge come together to find successful drug candidates, the company’s partnership model, and the inefficiencies he sees in the biotech industry.
TURNAROUND CASE STUDY - A Pharma Industry Outsider’s Perspective - Turning Around the “ABCDMO” Company
Paul Fioravanti, MBA, MPA, presents a case study on how he successfully turned around a failing CDMO that grew rapidly from one production location to eight in just 4 years, but was just few weeks away from running out of cash.
BIOSIMILAR DEVELOPMENT - Biosimilars: The Process & Quality System Approach to Clinical Applications
Kaiser Aziz, PhD, addresses biosimilar developments and future innovations with an emphasis placed on quality system approaches to the development and availability of new biosimilar products.
REAL ESTATE - How Biopharma M&A Can Uncover Hidden Value in Real Estate
Roger Humphrey, MBA, says a new era of deal-making is accelerating breakthrough therapy development, making now a prime time to look for breakthrough real estate and facilities concepts as well.
2021 COMPANY PROFILES & CAPABILITIES
For each participating company, this section presents a detailed summary highlighting their core technologies, capabilities, technologies, and services.
FORMULATION FORUM - Age-Appropriate Pediatric Formulation Development
Jim Huang, PhD, reviews how a pediatric formulation should consider the following factors: difference in physiological and pharmacokinetic of patient populations, dosage form selection, route of administration, dose accuracy, dose flexibility, drug and excipient tolerability (safety and toxicity), patient compliance (palatability/swallowability), stability, and drug accessibility.
PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY - Overcoming the Challenges of Drug Brain Delivery With a Novel Brain Delivery Vector
Mei Mei Tian, PhD, explains how the xB3 platform has the potential to support development of treatments for CNS diseases that can treat thousands of patients in the years ahead.
POLYMERIC DELIVERY SYSTEM - Next-Generation Long-Acting Implantables Using Surface-Eroding Elastomers
Stephanie Reed, PhD, Carissa Smoot, and Dennis Shull describe how PGSU ultimately offers many advantages over other polymers for long-acting implantables, particularly for high-loading, long-duration implants that are gaining interest in the pharmaceutical industry.
VACCINE DEVELOPMENT - COVID-19 Vaccine Focusing on T Cells to Protect the Most Vulnerable
Jeffrey Wolf, MBA, JD, says while most vaccines in development are targeted to protect healthy people, few are focusing on those who are most at risk – seniors and those with co-morbidities like heart failure, obesity, or type 2 diabetes.
