Drug Development
There is a continuous development of new chemical substances that act effectively on their targets, such as brain receptors.
However, most of them are useless as drugs because they will never reach their target in the organism. They degrade or metabolise too quickly, or they cannot penetrate biological barriers and reach the tissue they need to affect, such as brain tissue.
Advanced analytical chemistry is an integral part of drug development. When pharmaceutical scientists know the chemistry of substances, how they interact with the body, and how they are metabolised and eliminated, they can develop drugs that release the right amount of active substance at the right point in the right place in the body.
Professional profiles
The Drug Development track provides the opportunity for various professional profiles, such as:
Within pharmaceutics and drug delivery, you focus on the development of the drug formulation. Many drug substances cannot be absorbed directly in the body. In a therapeutic context, other drug substances are absorbed in the wrong places and, therefore, have no effect or perhaps even a harmful effect.
This is where formulation experts are relevant with their knowledge of relevant drug formulations, their understanding of drug chemistry, and their knowledge about how the body absorbs different substances.
Interdisciplinary work involves the areas of chemistry, physiology, and pharmacology in order to find a formulation – a composition – that can put the substance on the right track in the organism.
Within biopharmaceuticals, you learn how biopharmaceuticals are formulated as solutions, suspensions, and freeze thawed preparations.
You also gain insights into new promising ways to administer these drugs non-parenterally. In addition, you get hands-on experience on how to produce, analyse, identify, handle and work with proteins in the correct way.
The active ingredient in biopharmaceuticals is in general a biological macromolecule and imitation of endogenous compounds with high activity and specificity combined with low toxicity.
Macromolecules have distinct physical and physicochemical properties compared to small molecules. Hence, understanding the pharmaceutical development of biopharmaceuticals requires specific skills and a different way of thinking.
Within Drug Metabolism and Pharmaceutical Analytical Chemistry, you focus on investigating how the active substance releases from the drug, absorbs and distributes in the body, and how it is eliminated.
Very rapid elimination or conversion to metabolites can mean that a potential drug must be abandoned in the development process.
Detailed knowledge of metabolism and metabolites is a prerequisite for optimising the properties of the drug and selecting the ideal formulation.
Investigations are most often done by determining metabolites in biological material, such as, blood, serum, or urine samples from animals and humans. This detective work requires advanced analytical chemical techniques, which enables you to separate and identify the metabolites.