CPhI Pharma Awards from a Judge’s Perspective

The CPhI Pharma Awards, held every year at CPhI Worldwide, honor companies driving the pharmaceutical industry forward with their innovation. Pharmaceutical Technology spoke to Michael Platscher, PhD, senior project manager R&D, Drug Delivery Compounds-Lipids, Merck & Cie, about his experience as a judge for the CPhI Pharma Awards.

PharmTech: What is it like being a judge for the pharma awards over the years?

Platscher: It is now six years that I started acting as juror for the CPhI Pharma Awards. I am a chemist by profession and work in the field of functionalized excipients. Development and GMP manufacturing are my daily business. During the past years, the pharma market has changed a lot. We are seeing a huge shift to biological APIs, for example, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), small-interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA), messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), and recently, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). This move has also a big impact on related fields such as formulation and regulatory affairs.

For me, it is very thrilling to see these trends reflected in the yearly entrees for the CPhI Pharma Awards.

PharmTech: Can you tell us a bit about the judging process? Especially with so many companies submitting entries for the pharma awards, what actually makes a particular entry stand out?

Platscher: The individual judges will focus on categories that they have specific knowledge in. The entrees are reviewed for novelty and for their potential impact in the appropriate field. Therefore, it is very important that applicants precisely describe both, the state of the art and their own innovative approach. Finally, the individual ratings of the judges are being consolidated in a discussion of all jury members of the respective category and the winner is elected mutually.