ElienDeConinck

Elien De Coninck

Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Technology

Ottergemsesteenweg 460
B-9000 Gent (Belgium)
Tel : +32-9-264.80.60
E-mail : Elien.DeConinck@UGent.be

Biography

Pharmacist Elien De Coninck obtained her master in Drug Development in 2015. During her Master’s thesis in 2014, she evaluated the relaxation conditions (methodology and kinetics) for micronized inhalation APIs at Janssen Pharmaceutica. In 2015 she started her PhD research on the development and characterization of a versatile drug delivery platform using fatty acids as functional excipients.

Summary of Research Project

As oral drug delivery remains the most important route for drug administration, the development and characterization of a versatile drug delivery platform which provides flexibility towards drug release profiles remains highly relevant. The project focusses on multiparticulate lipid-based oral dosage forms produced via prilling using fatty acids (FA) as functional excipients. As the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) can be dissolved or suspended in a (mixture of) molten FA during processing, the physical state of the API during prilling can affect processing as well as the characteristics of the prills. Since API/FA solutions were already prilled successfully, the aim of this study is to increase the application field of prilling by manufacturing and characterizing prills from an API suspension in (mixtures of) molten FA.
The research project mainly focusses on the processability (nozzle obstruction, sedimentation, thermal degradation) of API/FA suspensions during lab-scale and upscaling experiments while a full characterization of the prills from a molecular level to the bulk level provide a thorough understanding of this FA-based system. To develop a versatile drug delivery platform, the composition of the matrix system will be evaluated and adjusted to control drug release out of the FA-based matrix system.