Pharm. Manon Lammens graduated as pharmacist in 2023 from Ghent University where she obtained her Master of Science in Drug Development. For her Master's thesis, which she completed at the University of Helsinki, Finland, she evaluated the effect of trace crystallinity in amorphous solid dispersions on the dissolution of the drug. In 2023, she started her PhD on the project of post-processing of spray dried powder into tablets via direct compression.
Summary of Research Project
The oral route of drug administration is regarded as the most preferred route for medicines. However, poorly water-soluble drugs pose a significant challenge to developability of oral dosage forms due to their problematic bioavailability. One of the key approaches to improve bioavailability of such drugs is the production of amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) by spray drying. These ASDs, in which an amorphous active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) is molecularly dispersed within a polymer, can then be further processed into tablets. The first aim of this project is to increase the understanding of the properties of the API, polymer and spray dried powder properties which will define the post-processing of spray dried ASDs during direct compression. Finally, a predictive model will be developed to guide the tablet formulation of the external phase. This can enable the switch from the current trial-and-error approach to a model-based one, resulting in a faster time-to-market of ASD-based tablets by reducing the resources required during the development phase.
