Excipient research wins PhD candidate prestigious award

A PhD student's work into excipients has received praise from US Pharmacopeial.

A PhD candidate from the US has won a global fellowship award from US Pharmacopeial for work involving excipients.

Ting Wang, from the University of Marylan at Baltimore's School of Pharmacy, was recognised for research into the development of chemometric and spectroscopic identification of excipients, as well as the detection of adulterants.

USP is itself working to modernise its standards for small molecule drugs and excipients by replacing the procedures it uses in the identification process.

To this end, it praised Ms Wang's work for using spectroscopy and chemometric methods to characterise excipients, which can have a key role on the efficacy of drugs, as well as their stability and manufacturability.
"Ms. Wang's research shows how the combination of spectroscopy and chemometric methods can be used as a rapid technique for identifying and evaluating the physio-chemical properties of these important raw materials in drug products," it said.

The award was presented as part of its programme to recognise scientists at the start of their careers, with USB chief executive Roger L Williams saying: "Advances in science and technology often arise from the work of young researchers attempting to find cutting-edge solutions to problems."