Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD A pharmaceutical company begins development of a new drug by screening dozens or even thousands of molecules to find the…
CMC
The 4 Axes of Drug Development Readiness
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In the earliest stages of drug research, scientists conduct bench experiments at a university or in a corporate pharmaceutical research…
Plant-Based Drug Discovery—Nature’s Pharmacy
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Before there was a pharmaceutical industry, humans looked to plants as source of medicines. Today’s post focuses on medicines derived…
Project Management: Creating a Timeline
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD I was talking with one of my nieces recently. In her school, she and several of her friends have a…
Tactics for Managing the Unforeseen
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Sooner or later, something goes wrong in our work lives. In pharmaceutical manufacturing, errors or “deviations” are common events, and…
So, You Want to Consult
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Consultation—offering your professional services to companies on a time-limited basis—can be a rewarding type of work. It is gratifying to…
Trends in Pharmaceutical Autoinjector Design and Use
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In today’s post, some important aspects of development and manufacture of combination products with pharmaceutical autoinjectors are considered. Pharmaceutical autoinjectors…
Subcutaneous Suspensions for Challenging Formulations
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In today’s post, we will look at subcutaneous suspensions as a way of meeting difficult drug delivery challenges. To decide…
Solving Drug Shortages
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Imagine that you have an infection, and you need a common antibiotic, but you cannot find a drugstore that is…
Oral Delivery of Protein Drugs
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Proteins and peptides are commonly delivered subcutaneously and by infusion; however, these approaches have disadvantages. Among the chief problems are:…
Immediate, Delayed, and Extended-Release Drug Products
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD The focus of today’s post is oral drug release—immediate, delayed, and extended. Many technologies exist for controlling drug release—the focus…
Selecting and Working With a Contract Manufacturer
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD The Convention on Pharmaceutical Ingredients (CPhI) was just held in Frankfurt. As the self-described “leading networking event for pharmaceutical industry,”…
Pharmaceutical Product Launch
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Above is a photo from the 1947 launch of the M.V. St. Essylt at J.L. Thompson and Sons was a…
Pharmaceutical Patent Strategy
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD When I think of patent law, I am reminded of a line from the play A Man for All Seasons. …
Pharmaceutical Design Focus: Clot Busters (2 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In the first part of this post, we looked at urokinase. In the second part, we will look at tissue…
Pharmaceutical Design Focus: Clot Busters (1 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD This November will be the 35th anniversary of the approval of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA, alteplase) a leading treatment for…
Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Risk Management
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD As pharmaceutical supply chains have become global, the risk management of drug supply has become increasingly complex. Recently, I was…
The Design Process
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In Pharmaceutical manufacturing, frequently process development uses designed plays—just like in American football. In football, the play caller looks at…
Lipid Nanoparticles for Covid-19 Vaccines
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Hopefully, you have received your Covid-19 vaccine. If you did, there’s a pretty good chance it was delivered in lipid…
Pharmaceutical Design Focus: Factor VIII (2 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In the first part of this two-part post, we looked at the biochemistry of clotting factor Factor VIII and the…
Knowledge Management and Knowledge Events (2 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD The first part of this two-post series addressed knowledge management and knowledge mapping. In this second part, the use of…
Knowledge Management and Knowledge Mapping (1 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Any successful drug development program generates a massive amount of information. Just the NDA can run to more than 100,000…
Raw Materials Testing, Starting Materials, and Contact Materials (2 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD In the first post of this series, raw materials risk analysis was discussed. In the second post of this series,…
Risk Assessment of Raw Materials and Contact Materials (1 of 2)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD One of the first steps in a pharmaceutical development project is selection of chemicals. For the development team, it may…
Drug Development Plan
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD How A Drug Development Plan Originates Keller and Schnell suggest that there are five challenges to a pharmaceutical startup: 1)…
Nonclinical and CMC (3 of 3)
Stuart R. Gallant, MD, PhD Non-clinical development has two chief goals: 1) to develop safety data enabling the entry of the medicine into human clinical…