Drug Digest: Delving into Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing

In this exclusive Drug Digest video interview, Felicity Thomas, Associate Editorial Director, Pharmaceutical Technology Group, interviews experts from Biosynth and the University of Maryland about biopharmaceutical drug development and manufacturing. During the discussion, Hans de Backer and Peter Timmerman from Biosynth and Anupreet Kaur from the University of Maryland go into detail about the evolution of biopharmaceutical development, highlighting challenges and potential future trends. Additionally, the intricacies of monoclonal antibodies and the complexity of the supply chain are explored.

Interviews featuring

Anupreet Kaur

Post Doctoral Associate, Dr. Robert Brinson Research Group, Institute for Bioscience & Biotechnology Research (IBBR), National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), University of Maryland.

Anupreet is a dedicated structural biochemist with more than seven years of experience in structural biology, specializing in protein structural, dynamic and interaction studies. Her strength includes investigating proteins dynamics or conformational exchange using High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Anupreet completed her PhD in India and later joined George Washington University as a Post doctoral Research fellow where she did protein engineering to enhance its ligase activity. Currently in IBBR, Anupreet is elucidating the biophysical mechanisms of pharmaceutically relevant excipient-Fab Interactions. Her ultimate aim is to explore the dynamics of monoclonal antibodies at atomic level and characterize the conformational changes in various pharmaceutically relevant formulations using NISTmAb, reference antibody and NIST-Fab with the help of advanced NMR.

Hans de Backer
Head of the Peptide Division, Biosynth

Hans received a BSc and MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. He spent over seven years at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, specializing in life sciences. In the four years after that, he spent time in API operations at Aspen Pharmacare, where he built his operational management expertise, first as a Program Manager of a company-wide IT transformation, and later as a Manager of Technical Affairs. In 2019, he joined Pepscan as CEO, which became part of the Biosynth Group after three years, and now Hans is the Head of the Peptide Division at Biosynth.

Peter Timmerman
Head of Peptide Science, Biosynth

Peter, Head of Peptide Science at Biosynth, joined the group following the acquisition of Pepscan in 2022, where he had served as CSO since 2012. He drives advancements in protein mimicry for peptide drug discovery programs. Timmerman is the inventor of CLIPS technology and held a chair as a Professor in Protein Mimetic Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam from 2007-2022. He obtained his MSc Chemistry degree from Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam) and earned his PhD cum laude from the University of Twente. Timmerman has co-authored over 100 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Sponsors

This episode of Drug Digest is sponsored by:

• Adare Pharma Solutions
• Biovectra
• Kindeva Drug Delivery
• Pharmatech Associates
• Thermo Fisher Scientific
• Veltek Associates Inc.

About Drug Digest

Drug Digest is a tech talk video series with the Pharmaceutical Technology® editors, who interview industry experts to discuss the emerging opportunities, obstacles, and advances in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry for the research, development, formulation, analysis, upstream and downstream processing, manufacturing, supply chain, and packaging of drug products.

Upcoming episodes

• August 2024: Aseptic Processing and Manufacturing
• September 2024: Small Molecule APIs, Excipients, and Formulation
• October 2024: Automating Process Development