Board of Pharmaceutical Science Annual Report 2009-2010

The FIP Board of Pharmaceutical Sciences is pleased to report a highly successful year of activities and involvement on behalf of the Executive Committee, Special Interest Groups, and Members alike.

Board of Pharmaceutical Sciences

The BPS held two official meetings, the first during the FIP Congress in Istanbul, Turkey on 4 September, 2009 and the second in Geneva on 21 February, 2010 and an informal meeting at the time of AAPS Annual meeting on 10 November, 2009. In addition, a 1 ½ days BPS Exco meeting was held to discuss various BPS related issues in The Hague, 5-6 February, 2010. Throughout the year the Board furthered its goal of establishing itself as the leading global forum for pharmaceutical scientists by organising quality scientific programs and following through with several very successful outreach programs (Regulatory Science; Hands on Dissolution and Bioequivalence; Biotechnology and Quality workshops) in developing countries.

Pharmaceutical Sciences World Congress (PSWC) 2010

The BPS holds a scientific congress every 3 to 4 years in different regions of the world. The congress addresses cutting edge science and technology. The last Pharmaceutical Sciences World Congress was held in co-operation with AAPS in New Orleans, LA, USA, November 14-18, 2010. FIP/BPS members were actively involved with the organization of PSWC 2010. About 100 events, symposia, roundtable discussions were selected from over 530 submitted events.

The next PSWC will take place in 2014 in Melbourne, Australia.

Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2020

The BPS looked into the future of Pharmaceutical Sciences, what it will be and what are the possible changes that may occur in 2020. For this, BPS held a preliminary meeting in December 2007 to discuss Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2020. A follow up meeting was held in October 2008 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. About 30 global leaders, pharmaceutical scientists, bankers, venture capitalists, Pharma leaders, and regulators who has direct or indirect influence in pharmaceutical sciences participated in the meeting. The report of the deliberations was finalized and published:
• International Pharmacy Journal: 24(1), 1-16, 2009
• European J of Pharmaceutical Science: 38, 419-425, 2009
• Pharmaceutical Research: 27, 396-399 2010

Based on this a scenario analysis was developed, and is published in:
• Nature Reviews/Drug Discovery: 9(2), 99-100 (2010).
The topic was discussed at FIP Istanbul meeting, DIA Europe meeting in Monaco, March 2010 and was presented at PSJ meeting in Japan in March 2010.

 

Impact of Pharmaceutical Sciences

It was decided to develop documents that describe the Impact of Pharmaceutical Sciences and its major contributions in the healthcare arena. The major contributions in drug discovery, development, regulation and utilization relate to the impact on academia and industry on each other and on healthcare directly. The required information will be gathered by conducting a survey directed at prominent international pharmaceutical scientists globally. For this purpose, the pharmaceutical sciences will be divided into 5 categories: drug discovery, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, formulation science, drug regulation and drug utilization. The results of the survey will be discussed and developed into publication.

Centennial Activities

FIP will be celebrating its centennial in 2012 at the FIP Congress in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 4-8 October, 2012. Dr. Geoff Tucker, BPS Exco member and Dr. Ross McKinnon will represent BPS in the Program Committee. The science program will focus on its contribution which has direct relevance to practice.

Special Interest Groups

The BPS has 10 Special Interest Groups (SIGs), each group has two or three co-chairs representing different parts of the globe. The BPS has initiated a separate annual meeting in spring with all SIG co-chairs to invigorate the SIG activities, discuss science and harmonize all BPS science activities. SIGs also provide input in the upcoming Science program for the Annual Congress.

The BPS has historically been highly involved in the BioInternational conferences, which are held every two years and aim to discuss and resolve complex issues in bioavailability and bioequilvalence (BA/BE). These discussions are held on a FIP-BPS neutral platform with academia, industry, and regulators and aim to reach international understanding and harmonization within these specialised fields. The last Bio-International conference, focused on "Towards Improved Harmonization in Regulating Multisource Products" was orgaqnized in London, October 22-24, 2008. A pre-satellite workshop on "What is new in In itro Release?" was also held in London. Both the events were successful with good audience participation.

BPP-IPS and BPS has jointly initiated Quality-International Workshops, held every two years, alternatively with Bio-International Workshops in London. The theme of the next workshop was "Managing quality across supply drug supply chain: From product inception to patient utilization" . Unfortunately, due to poor registration, the event had to be cancelled.

One of the major activities of BPS is the outreach educational and regulatory science program. This includes ‘hands-on-dissolution' workshop, regulatory bioavailability/bioequivalence workshop, biotechnology workshop and quality workshop. A "Hands-on-Dissolution" workshop is planned together with FEFAS congress 2010 on May 25-26, 2010 in Porto Alegre (Brazi). Several BA/BE related workshops for 2010 are in the plan.

The SIG on BCS and Biowaiver has published several Biowaiver monographs of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) for medicines on the WHO List of Essential Drugs in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Science. This activity is continued. They are available on the FIP website. These monographs provide solubility and permeability information to sponsors for use in submitting their dossier to regulatory authorities for biowaiver.

Events in Brief:

• BPS has now added 'BPS official meeting in spring' to further enhance communication, discussion and dissemination of Scientific activities.
• BPS Exco is now revising its Strategic Plan to align it with FIP 2020 Vision and Pharmaceutical Sciences 2020 report.
• In order to increase the interactions between and within the BPS Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and to enhance their input into BPS activities, the BPS continued their spring annual all SIGs co-chairs meeting.
• A pre-satellite workshop on "Special dosage form - in vitro release" was held on November 14-15, 2009 in Los Angeles.
• The SIG Individualized Medicine organized a one day conference in Nagasaki, Japan, October 2009. This was the fourth workshop in the series, and second in Japan going around the globe.

PSMOs

The BPS tries to interact with its Primarily Scientific Member Organisations (PSMOs) to develop workshops, symposia and other scientific activities. The BPS Chair and/or the Scientific Secretary met with AAPS, CRS, EUFEPS, PSJ, APSTJ, TUFTAD and PSK leadership separately at their annual meeting to discuss better interactions with FIP and collaboration in scientific programs.

FIP/BPS Awards

The highest Scientific Award, Host Madsen Award was bestowed on Yuichi Sugiyama of Japan in September 2009. In addition, Dr. Dirk Barends was recognised as an FIP Fellow.

BPS/BPP Interactions

Members of the two boards are working together to bridge the gap between science and practice. Examples of this include (1) interactions with FIP/IPS in holding joint workshops as well as symposia at annual congress (2) translational science, how science can/will influence practice.

 

Conclusions

The BPS is pleased with the accomplishments of 2009-2010, and looks forward to continued active involvement in the coming years whereby the current Strategic Plan will be used a guiding document.

Dr. Vinod P. Shah
Scientific Secretary
April 14, 2010.