Last week the in-Pharmatechnologist.com editorial team hung up our phones, turned off our Tweetdeck software, unplugged our keyboards and settled in for the Bioavailability Challenge 2013, an online webinar series focused on the topic of….well….drug bioavailability.
Once we’d plugged our keyboards back in – apparently they are something of a requirement for online events – the ‘virtual doors’ to the event swung open to welcome pharmaceutical researchers from around the world who wanted answers to their bioavailability enhancement questions.
We were joined by drug developers and formulators from Big Pharma firms like Swiss companies Roche and Novartis, France’s Sanofi, the UK’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and – from the other side of the Atlantic - Bristol Myers-Squibb (B-MS), Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Eli Lilly.
Hot topics
Attendees listened to presentations from leading scientists, market researchers and bioavailability enhancement service providers on a wide range of topics – from dynamics in the service provision sector to case studies and discussions of the latest techniques.
They also had the chance to download technical papers on these subjects and it was here where it became clear that excipients are still of most interest to those seeking to make their candidate medicines more bioavailable.
324 technical papers on excipients and related topics were downloaded by attendees over the 7-hour event with cellulose-based compounds being one of the most discussed topics.
Drug delivery was the next most popular topic in terms of downloads, just ahead of solubility enhancement polymers.
A significant proportion of scientists at the Bioavailability Challenge had questions about how manufacturing techniques like solid dispersions and hot melt extrusion can be used to make candidate compounds more bioavailable.
Others wanted to know more about lipid-based solutions with 126 technical documents being downloaded during the show.
The editorial team would like to thank everyone who took part in the show and we hope it helped you with some of your bioavailability challenges.
For those that didn’t join us online at the show the good news is that all the presentations will be online for the next three months for you to listen to at your leisure.
Hope to see you next time.