Inhaled and Nasal Biologics/DNA Forum 2024

Keynote Talk: Alternative to LNPs – development of peptide-based RNA delivery systems for pulmonary delivery

Dr Lam’s research is focused on the development of novel delivery systems for RNAs and biologics, with a special interest in using particle engineering methods to produce dry powder aerosols for lung delivery, targeting various respiratory diseases and infections. She has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles and filed a number of patent applications on pulmonary drug delivery systems. In 2020, she was awarded the DDL Emerging Scientist Award which recognised her significant accomplishment and innovation in inhalation science. Additionally, Dr Lam recently co-edited ‘Respiratory Delivery of Biologics, Nucleic Acids and Vaccines’, a comprehensive review of pulmonary delivery of macromolecules and biologics.

Talk Title: Nasal delivery of vaccines - not as easy as expected

Prof. Dr. Regina Scherließ is a professor for Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, vice-dean for research of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Kiel University (since 2022) and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics at Kiel University, Germany. As such she leads the research unit in Pharmaceutics and is responsible for all teaching in Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics at Kiel University. She is a pharmacist and received her Dr. rer. nat. (doctor of natural sciences) in 2008 for a work on “Formulation of inhalation combination products by co-precipitation”. In 2015 she finished her “habilitation” working on “Mucosal vaccination via the respiratory tract”. During her academic education she had research stays in Denmark, the US, New Zealand and Australia. She also received several young researcher awards including The Pat Burnell New Investigator Award 2010 of the Aerosol Society and is member of the DDL scientific committee (since 2015). She also is member of the board of the priority research area KiNSIS (Kiel Nano Interface and Surface Sciences) at Kiel University (since 2020). Her research interests include disperse systems and nanoparticles, stabilisation of biomolecules and particle engineering in spray drying, and formulations for mucosal vaccination with a focus on respiratory (nasal and pulmonary) dry powder delivery. She is a co-founder of the Nasal Research Focus Group, a research consortium from academia and industry focusing on nasal drug delivery.

Talk Title: Optimising Delivery of Biologics Through Inhalation; Challenges and Opportunities

Catherine is a Protein Scientist with over 20 years in the Biotechnology Industry. She has broad knowledge of all aspects of the drug discovery process for biologics and has been the Co-leader for four pre-clinical projects that successfully transitioned into early pre-clinical development for which she developed novel therapeutic recombinant proteins. Three of those projects were aimed at inhalation delivery; one is currently progressing in Phase 2 clinical trials. She is a contributor to three systemic pre-clinical projects and Co-Inventor on four patent applications in addition to three published ones. She is experienced in working in cross-functional teams in matrix structure and contributing to developability guidance for inhaled biologics. Catherine is interested in understanding better the quality attributes of inhaled biologics for spray drying stability.

Talk Title: Optimising Delivery of Biologics Through Inhalation; Challenges and Opportunities

Tanvir joined Astrazeneca about a year ago. He is based in Cambridge, UK, and is working as a Director in the Dosage Form Design and Development (DFDD) group of the company. The responsibilities of the DFDD group include developing pharmaceutically stable, market competitive, user centric biopharmaceutical dosage forms. Prior to joining Astrazeneca, Tanvir worked in the Biopharmaceutical industry, for a number of years, for Novartis, Takeda, Beaufour Ipsen and GSK.

Talk Title: Effective formulation strategy for pulmonary delivery of probiotics

Francesca Buttini currently holds an Associate Professor position at the Food and Drug Department, University of Parma (IT) and where now she is leading the unit dedicated to design of pharmaceutical products for inhalation. In 2014, she was appointed as Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science of King’s College London (UK). Combining her background in pharmaceutical technology, regulatory aspects, and device design, she is executing research programs aimed to deliver medicinal products that take into consideration the patient, industrial and regulatory requirements. To date, she has published more than 98 original papers and as a result of her research achievement, she obtained in 2017 the DDL Emerging Scientist Awards from the UK Aerosol Society. Francesca Buttini is a founder of PlumeStars, an innovative SME, dedicated to development of orphan drug products to treat lung and systemic disease by inhalation therapy.

Talk Title: Non-clinical and clinical development aspects of inhaled biologics

Jaap Wieling is a pharmacologist with a vast track record in development of new pharmaceutical products based on small and large molecules, as a scientist and as an executive in various pharma companies and contract organizations. He is an entrepreneur since 1999, and (co-)founded several biotech and service companies. In parallel he has been a part-time university teacher for almost 2 decades (Groningen), teaching clinical and bioanalytical aspects of drug development. He also serves on the board of various biotech companies.
Jaap is currently CEO of PureIMS, an innovative company in the Netherlands developing a pipeline of dry-powder inhalation products and also co-developing products with pharma partners.