Last week, the Farmak delegation took part in the last conference and meeting of the ORBIS project in the city of Poznan, Poland. The project lasted 5 years as part of the HORIZON 2020 program funded by a grant from the EU. Its participants were eight academies and five pharmaceutical companies from eight countries, including Farmak from Ukraine.
Photo: Participants of the ORBIS project in Poznań (Poland)
ORBIS (Open Research Biopharmaceutical Internships Support. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange) is an international project aimed at improving the efficiency of medicine development through collaboration between academic centers and pharmaceutical companies around the world. The activities of the consortium were focused on improving the development of medicines, focusing on processes and technologies to address the issue of low bioavailability of active substances since 70% of them have problems with solubility and/or membrane permeability.
More than 30 Farmak experts were involved in the project. As well as representatives of institutions: Trinity College Dublin (Ireland); University of Helsinki (Finland), University of Chemistry and Technology of Prague (Czech Republic), University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), Poznan University of Technology (Poland), Poznan University of Medical Sciences (Poland), University of Central Florida (USA), Rutgers University, Zentiva K.S. ( Czech Republic), Celon Pharma (Poland), Physiolution (Germany), АРС (Ireland).
During the project, scientists collaborated on the most relevant and modern issues of the drug development process, such as the synthesis and optimization of new active substances, the study of previous formulations, the development of new oral, dermal, and transdermal dosage forms, the study of drug dissolution and release, trends in combining IVIVC data for long-acting medicines; and biopharmaceutical evaluation of dosage forms and drug delivery systems to predict the pharmacokinetic parameters of various medicines.
During the last meeting of the project, the scientific works of Farmak employees were highly appreciated by the international community and awarded “Best Oral Presentation” and “Best Poster”. In general, participation in the project allowed the company’s team to strengthen international and inter-industry relations, gain new knowledge and experience, and also promoted active cooperation with other participants.
Photo: Farmak team of scientists – participants of the HORIZON 2020 program
“The main goal of the project was cooperation between scientific institutions and commercial organizations around the world. Farmak was the only representative from Ukraine. And we really had a great opportunity to establish partnership contacts with the international scientific community. Another advantage of the grant was the opportunity to work on new equipment that we had not used before, because it is not yet available in Ukraine. In addition, it was useful to participate in scientific discussions, where we received information about various global trends in medicine research and development. They also shared their own approaches and practical results of drug development,” says Yulia Kondratova, Head of the Analytical Development Department at Farmak.
Farmak has already started cooperation with 2 companies that are members of the ORBIS consortium.
