Welcome to this year’s second edition of APS Insights the newsletter from APS, your membership organisation. We hope you enjoy reading this and find it informative. We would love to hear your feedback on this newsletter or indeed any aspect of APS at info@apsgb.co.uk

This year to highlight our commitment to networking we have included the Conference Dinner within the ticket so that this is inclusive and you are all invited! In previous years this has been a “black tie” event and although we do not expect black tie this year we do hope that you will enjoy getting dressed up to celebrate pharmaceutical science with us. The Conference Dinner is also where you will see our fellowships awarded and I hope you will meet most of our board and Focus Group leads, this year it will be taking place in Titanic Belfast which is sure to be spectacular.

At this point I am absolutely delighted with the Scientific programme that we have produced as it includes a breadth of topics and exceptional speakers. I always look forward to the abstract submissions and posters as this will showcase the best talent across the UK. Behind the scenes there are several people working on the conference and this has included a team of early career researchers who are providing content to our Twitter (@aps_pharmsci) and Linked in pages – I hope you are following these to keep up to date.

I very much look forward to meeting all of you in person in Belfast!

Hopefully you will have noticed that the APS has changed its logo!

After over 20 years of operation it was felt that a new image was required for the APS.
We explored our values of high-quality science; a community of individuals and a professional body to develop a new logo that reflected all three aspects. A diverse range of logos were presented to us and the one that you see was voted to be the best by the current APS board and advisory board.

Alternatives were felt to be too focused on a single area, for example some alternatives looked too academic as they were focussed on the science/professional body aspects. We also did a background search on both other APS logos.

This can represent a range of bodies including the antiphospholipid syndrome support group; aviation products systems; advanced product services so we needed to ensure that we had a sufficiently different logo to any of these bodies. We also looked at logos of similar bodies including the Royal Pharmaceutical Society; the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry to help guide our decision.

There is a lot of information on the colour theory and branding. Purple has had long associations with wealth and royalty; it was the colour that emperors used on their togas! Green has always been a colour associated with pharmacy and is considered to be a calming colour. The combination of the purple and green was selected as contrasting colours to provide a harmony for the brand.

The previous logo was the result of a competition back in 2000ish. My memory is that the previous logo was designed by Professor Karl Malcolm at Queens University Belfast, however, I apologise in advance if my memory is incorrect!

APS Delivers

The paper brings together authors from 19 institutions including academics, industry and regulatory agencies.

This was out most popular webinar series run in 2021 and it is great that the output is already published as a free to access paper. The webinars are still available to members in the APS members area of the website.

The APS has a partnership with MDPI Pharmaceutics and if you would like to develop a paper then please get in touch with your proposal and we can see how the APS can support you.

Previously published APS papers include:

C.F. van der Walle, C. Dufès, A.S. Desai, J. Kerby, J. Broadhead, A. Tam, Z. Rattray, Report on Webinar Series Cell and Gene Therapy: From Concept to Clinical Use, Pharmaceutics, 14 (2022).

Wahlich, Review: Continuous manufacturing of small molecule solid oral dosage forms, Pharmaceutics, 13 (2021).

McAllister, T. Flanagan, K. Boon, X. Pepin, C. Tistaert, M. Jamei, A. Abend, E. Kotzagiorgis, C. Mackie, Developing clinically relevant dissolution specifications for oral drug products—industrial and regulatory perspectives, Pharmaceutics, 12 (2020).

Wahlich, M. Orlu, A. Mair, S. Stegemann, D. Van Riet-Nales, Age-related medicine, Pharmaceutics, 11 (2019).

Wahlich, A. Desai, F. Greco, K. Hill, A.T. Jones, R.J. Mrsny, G. Pasut, Y. Perrie, F.P. Seib, L.W. Seymour, I.F. Uchegbu, Nanomedicines for the delivery of biologics, Pharmaceutics, 11 (2019).

Leane, K. Pitt, G.K. Reynolds, N. Dawson, I. Ziegler, A. Szepes, A.M. Crean, R.D. Agnol, B. Broegmann, S.T. Charlton, C. Davies, J. Gamble, M. Gamlen, W.K. Hsiao, Y.Z. Khimyak, J. Khinast, P. Kleinebudde, C. Moreton, M. Oswald, S. Page, A. Paudel, R. Sahoo, S. Sheehan, H. Stamato, E. Stone, G. The Manufacturing Classification System Working, Manufacturing classification system in the real world: factors influencing manufacturing process choices for filed commercial oral solid dosage formulations, case studies from industry and considerations for continuous processing, Pharmaceutical Development and Technology, 23 (2018) 964-977.

Wahlich, D. Elder, F. Liu, C. Hughes, M. Orlu-Gul, Meeting commentary-“Parkinson’s disease: From patient to product“, International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 494 (2015) 167-171.

Wahlich, S. Stegemann, M. Orlu-Gul, Meeting commentary–“medicines for older adults: learning from practice to develop patient centric drug products“, International journal of pharmaceutics, 456 (2013) 251-257.

Our First in-person Conference since 2019 Greenwich

PharmSci international conference Belfast

I am very much looking forward to the lectures of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Award Winners, Stuart Jones, Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy and Bahijja Raimi-Abraham, who will provide insights into their research at the cutting edge of pharmaceutical sciences.

We have Plenary Lectures from Claire Thompson and Mark McAllister, returning to their home city to describe their experience of leading innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, and Snow Stolnik, who will discuss the perennial challenge of biological barriers to nanomedicines. As ever, our Focus Groups have worked diligently to assemble a series of compelling scientific sessions, with lead talks by experienced scientists, as well as early career researchers, along with a selection of shorter talks selected from the submitted abstracts. I am particularly interested in the sessions from our newest Focus Group, Emerging Technologies, as well as that in my own research area of Skin Delivery. However, there really is something for everyone here and I would encourage you to check out the programme.

The conference is a great opportunity to engage with colleagues from across the spectrum of pharmaceutical sciences, from both academia and industry. For many of us, we will be reconnecting with friends who we haven’t seen face-to-face for 3 years. For students and new post-docs, this may be your first in-person conference. For all of us, the conference represents a chance to informally network, to build new links and learn new things. The programme has been designed to showcase the very best international science, while providing ample space for younger scientists to present their latest work. We’ve factored in networking opportunities around lunch and coffee breaks, as well as dedicated time for engaging with poster presenters and the industrial exhibition, which is always a highlight of the conference. We have three social activities; a Welcome Reception on the evening of Tuesday 6^th September in the Naughton Gallery in Queen’s University Belfast’s historic Lanyon Building, an Evening Reception at the beautiful City Hall and the Conference Dinner at Titanic Belfast – Plenty of craic to be had, as we say in Belfast! The city itself has plenty to offer in terms of culture and nightlife and Visit Belfast have arranged a number of discounts for conference attendees.

I’d like to thank Kofi Asare-Addo and Bahijja Raimi-Abraham for putting together the programme, as well as APS Chair Hannah Batchelor and Administrator Trish Sharp for leading the Planning Team. Trevor Archbold and Jo Craig have been instrumental in sourcing sponsorship for the conference. The result will be a top class international meeting that you will be talking about for years to come – Please do join us by registering for the conference and submitting your best work as an abstract!

Click here to visit our Pharmsci page to book your tickets.

Parliamentery links day: An anual event orginised to strenghten the dialogue between the scientific community MP’s and Peers

The APS received two invitations and Bob Clay (current APS treasurer) and Bahijja Raimi-Abraham (current board member) will be attending on behalf of the APS. They will share their experiences in the next edition of the newsletter. There is also a chance to watch a recording of part of the day and we will also share that link in the next edition.

The Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (APS) at
Bio Integrates 2022

followed by an interview with Ruth Mckernan CBE (SV Health Investors) who was interviewed by APS Advisory Board Member Trevor Jones CBE (Chairman, e-Therapeutics and Board Member, Respiratory Innovation Wales and Ascension Healthcare). The remainder of conference was split into three tracks –

• Track One: People – How do we assemble and accelerate our teams for success?
• Track Two: Products – How do we protect, progress and pivot our products for maximal value?
• Tract Three: Projection – What does the future hold for life science investment, intellect and infrastructure?

APS members contributed to the programme including Jo Craig as part of the ‘Been There, Done That’ panel, discussing the progression of small companies to the point of acquisition; and Claire Thompson as part of the ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun(ds)’ panel, discussing what we can do to address why less than 5% of investment goes to female-led businesses.

Importantly, the conference also provided lots of opportunities for networking and the APS had a stand as part of the new Innovator Area . This was an excellent opportunity to talk to attendees about APS, our membership and showcase our focus group activities. It was also great to see existing APS members drop by and say hello!

Further conference details can be found here.

Why not join one of our Focus Groups?

The APS has 12 Focus Groups that cover a range of topics. These include:

• Age-Related Medicines
• Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs)
• Biopharmaceutics
• Drugs From Natural Sources
• Skin Forum
• Emerging Technologies
• New Scientists And Students
• Nanomedicines
• Material Science
• Parenterals
• Process Engineering And Formulation
• Regulatory

As an APS member you can join any of these focus groups and I urge you to look at the website here where you will find details of the remit of each group as well as who the leadership team are for each group. There is an option within the website to join the group.

If you are interested in getting involved in a focus group there are plenty of opportunities to organise workshops, webinars or to write position papers.

Typically focus groups meet (via teleconference) on a monthly basis to plan events or to discuss hot topics. Each year there is an opportunity for the focus groups to suggest speakers for the APS PharmSci annual conference. This year we have seen an increase in the number of webinars offered by the Focus Groups, particularly from Age-Related Medicines; Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products; Biopharmaceutics and Nanomedicines. The New Scientists and Students FG also ran their Industrial Insights meeting as a virtual event for the first time.
If you want to suggest any webinar topics or events please join the focus group and share your ideas with the membership.