This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 955756.

Shaida Panbachi

ESR5: Novel deep eutectic solvent (DES) formulations

University of Applied Sciences & Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Institute of Pharma Technology (FHNW)

Supervisor: Prof. Martin Kuentz (FHNW)

Planned secondments: Zentiva (Purpose: Industrial feasibility of novel deep eutectic systems)

Project Description

The main aim of the project is to evaluate thermodynamic and other computational methods to propose novel Deep Eutectic System (DES), to study drug-excipient miscibility experimentally and correlate observed mixture characteristics with those predicted by in silico approaches. On the industrial half, the aim will be to develop innovative DES technology that meets industrial priorities in terms of scalability, regulatory approval and commercial viability.

Background

Shaida Panbachi is a Danish pharmacist with Iranian roots. She graduated from University of Copenhagen in 2020. Shaida enrolled in the in the InPharma European Industrial Doctorate program as a PhD student starting June 2021 and completed the program in 2024. Her expertise lies in solubility enhancement of pharmaceutical active ingredients, novel pharmaceutical formulations, and improved research and development techniques, with specific emphasis on the novel deep eutectic solvents.

Shaida started the journey of pharmaceutical research and development with solid dosage forms as a main theme throughout her master’s studies. With the supervision of Korbinian Löbmann in the Solid-State Pharmaceutics department at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), an individual study unit was designed as an initial research project. The project involved the investigation of the solid-state properties of drug-loaded- and pure mesoporous silica as a solubility enhancing carrier, and the tabletability of this novel formulation. Shaida finalized this project with a full-mark and paved the way to an exclusive opportunity to pursue a master’s thesis project at Merck KGaA in Germany, in collaboration with Finn Bauer, Gudrun Birk, and Daniel Price. Here, the idea was to saturate the mesoporous silica with amorphous active pharmaceutical ingredients, and to utilize the stabilizing property of the silica to overcome the problem of amorphous instability in terms of crystallization. In this project, the goal of developing an oral dosage form was also successfully achieved. Inspired by the exciting formulation-development research and novel techniques within the solubility enhancement field, Shaida graduated with a full mark on this project and aimed for the InPharma ESR 5 project, which was successfully executed between the years 2021-2024. Three resulting publications were derived from the fruitful work:

  • Panbachi, S., Beranek, J., & Kuentz, M. (2023). Polymer-embedded deep eutectic solvents (PEDES) as a novel bio-enabling formulation approach. European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 186, 106463. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.EJPS.2023.106463
  • Panbachi, S., Beranek, J., & Kuentz, M. (2024). Hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent (HDES) as oil phase in lipid based drug formulations. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 661, 124418. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJPHARM.2024.124418
  • Panbachi, S., Beranek, J., & Kuentz, M. (Submitted to International Journal of Pharmaceutics). Abiraterone acetate fixed-dosed combinations with ibuprofen-based therapeutic eutectic and deep eutectic solvents.

 

“The purpose of the InPharma EU project aligns with my goals and interests in life by giving me the opportunity to delve into the depths of solubility improvement as a means of providing better medicine to the world, utilize deep eutectic solvents as less toxic solvent alternatives in all dimensions of the pharmaceutical industry, and to employ novel prediction tools and technologies to avoid waste of resources in research. This will be my contribution to the facilitation of an end-to-end animal-free modelling approach to oral drug product development.”

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