CRS organises international symposium on NDDS

EPP News Bureau - Mumbai

The sixth international symposium on `Advances in technology and business potential of New Drug Delivery Systems (NDDS)’ organised by Controlled Release Society (Indian Chapter) (CRS) was recently held in Mumbai. Around 300 delegates from the industry, regulatory bodies and academia participated in the event. The participants included personnel from R&D, QA, QC and production. Around 131 posters representing high quality research conducted at Indian universities, institutes and industry were presented at the conference.

Pankaj R Patel, Chairman and Managing Director of Cadila Health Care and Zydus Group of Companies, India, presided as chief guest. He spoke of his vision of the Indian pharmaceutical industry, the flux in the industry due to advent of the GATT era and the possible role the industry could play globally.

Prof Jennifer Dressman, President CRS-Inc (USA) was the Guest of Honour on the occasion. She highlighted the role played by CRS globally during her inaugural talk and briefed the delegates about the programme highlights and topics to be covered in the 32nd International CRS symposium, which is to be held in, Miami, Florida in June 2005 and invited delegates to participate in it.

In the scientific session she spoke on ‘‘Prediction of the intestinal solubility of poorly soluble drugs.’’ During her talk she explained the importance of solubility data in the formulation design and drug discovery and highlighted recent ly identified techniques.

Prof Crommelin, Utrecht University OctoPlus, Leiden, The Netherlands, delivered a lecture on ‘‘Impact of biotechnology on the design and formulation of drug delivery strategies.’’ He focused on various proteins and peptides, their business potential, problems in delivery and strategies to overcome these problems.

A talk on ‘Molecular mechanism of gene/drug delivery with nanoparticles’ was delivered by Dr Vinod Labhasetwar, associate professor at the Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE. He started with various issues associated with gene and proteins delivery. He explained in detail the role of nanoparticles for intracellular DDS and problems like RES, endosomal uptake and strategies to overcome the efflux of drug. He also spoke on various aspects of gene delivery using nanoparticles.

Dr Borchard, Vice-President Research of Enzon Pharmcaeuticals (NJ), gave a talk on ‘‘PEGylation of Antisense Oligonucleotides’’. He started his lecture with basic ideas about ologonucleotides, aptamers siRNA (RNAi) and CpG oligos, their delivery problems and how one can bypass this with PEGylation.

‘‘Thermoreversible lipid-based drug and gene delivery systems’’ was covered by Dr Chong-Kook Kim, Professor, College of Pharmacy, Seoul, Korea. The lecture focused on solid lipid nanoparticles, their manufacturing optimisation, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. He explained this with various examples of drugs like paclitaxel, clarithromycin, all trans retinoic acid, plasmid DNA and antisense oligonucleotide.

The event concluded with a lecture on ‘‘Regulatory requirements for transdermal DDS’’ by Dr Vinod P Shah, senior research scientist, OPS/CDER/FDA, USA. He explained various biopharmaceutical considerations for TDS like bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, established reproducibility sites for TDS. He illustrated this wth various examples.

The second day began with a lecture on ‘‘Nanoparticles technology and its pharmaceutical applications’’ by Prof Y Capan, Turkey . This was an overview of nanotechnology in drug delivery. He also explained brain targeting with NP and various technologies associated with cancer therapy, oligonucleotides and targeted delivery for antibiotics.

Dr Lehr, Head, Dept of Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, Saarland University, Germany, spoke on ‘‘Pharmaceutical nano-biotechnology: Perspectives for drug targeting, gene delivery and tissue engineering.’’ He emphasised on the novel application of atomic force microscopy (AFM) in the delivery system and imaging of nanotechnology. The lecture was informative with various applications of AFM, its perspectives for drug targeting, gene delivery, and tissue engineering.

Explaining various cell lines used for drug transport and also correlation with intestinal sacs, Dr David J Brayden, University College of Dublin, Ireland, spoke on ‘‘In vitro intestinal epithelial models for polymer adherence and drug transport.’’ He discussed various case studies with respect to drug transport.

Dr Francesco M Veronese, Dept of Pharmaceutical Sciences-Padua University in his paper on `Peptide and non-peptide drug PEGylation for improved therapy,’ explained in detail aspects of PEGylation for delivery of biotech and other drug molecules.

Dr D’Emanuele, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Manchester, UK. He explained polymer architecture of dendrimers in his talk on ‘Prodrugs and nanocarriers: Use of dendrimer nanocarriers to enhance oral bioavailability.’ He demonstrated use of dendrimers conjugated with drug for increased solubility and increased transport through cell membrane.

Dr Karsten Cremer, Founder and Principal, Pharma Concepts GmbH, Switzerland focused on the business aspects of DDS in his talk on ‘‘Advances in oral drug delivery technologies for life cycle management’’ and explained its rationale DDS. He also discussed various technologies for orally disintegrating dosage forms (ODDF) like Durasolv, Flashdose, Oraquick, Advatab, Zydis and the advantages of one over the other.