Improving drug delivery is an important consideration in new drug development and in managing the product life cycle of existing drugs. Delivery mechanisms that can improve patient compliance, facilitate administration, and target delivery of an active are crucial goals. Drugs that are delivered topically provide an opportunity to realize these objectives, and an upcoming webcast on Dec. 7th by Pharmaceutical Technology gains insight from leading industry experts on how to optimize topical drug formulations and manufacturing.

Topical formulations can be used to treat local and systematic indications, offer ease of delivery, facilitate patient compliance, and avoid the problem of first-pass metabolism. Successfully developing a topical formulation requires an understanding of the physiochemical properties, such as release characteristics, composition of the drug-delivery system, and the nature of the drug-delivery vehicle. Manufacturing a semisolid dosage requires implementing a CMC (chemistry, manufacturing, and controls) strategy to ensure stability, photosafety, avoidance of product degradation, and minimization of process impurities. The Pharmaceutical Technology webcast, “Optimizing Topical Drug Formulation and Manufacturing,” provides insight on recent advances in topical drug formulations, the latest regulatory/pharmacopoeial requirements in product quality and product performance, and strategies to optimize manufacturing for topical drug products.

Speakers include: Vinod Shah, PhD, chair of the Special Interest Group, Regulatory Science of the International Pharmaceutical Federation and distinguished pharmaceutical scientist and consultant to the US Pharmacopeia; Majella Lane, PhD, senior lecturer in pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy at the University of London; and Michael Lowenborg, R&D manager of formulation and process development at  DPT Laboratories.

Additional information and registration for the webcast may be found here.