Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis

Maarten Batens

Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Process Analytical TechnologyMaarten Batens

Ottergemsesteenweg 460
B-9000 Gent (Belgium) 
Tel.: +32-9-264.81.05
Fax: +32-9-222.82.36
E-mail: Education: Pharmacist (Master in Industrial Pharmacy)

Robotics for Comprehensive Physiological Pharmaceutical Performance (ROBIOCOP³)

Understanding the in vivo gastrointestinal behaviour of oral formulations is instrumental for their efficient and successful development. While biopharmaceutical assessments are needed to create this understanding and predict the in vivo behaviour, currently available tools are resource intensive, lack some of the critical physiological parameters and outputs to allow a comprehensive assessment. Moreover, the focus of available tools is mainly directed towards immediate release formulation platforms typically for small molecules while the need for local or controlled release delivery platforms is increasing rapidly. In Robiocop³, critical gaps will be addressed to enable biopharmaceutical support on multiple formulation platforms for small molecules. In addition, the potential of emerging high throughput technologies will be investigated to allow systematic and more comprehensive biopharmaceutical assessments with minimal compound/formulation requirements starting already at the drug discovery stage. In parallel, a customized in silico platform will be developed allowing fast and straight-forward in vitro data translation and interpretation. The project is a collaboration between the Biopharmaceutics, Automation and Solid-State groups at Janssen Pharmaceutica, the Drug Delivery and Disposition laboratory of the KU Leuven and the laboratory for Pharmaceutical Process Analytical Technology of Ghent University.