Researchers from the ibs.GRANADA awarded at the most important European Congress of Hospital Pharmacy
A group of researchers from the University of Granada and the University Hospital Complex of Granada -ascribed to the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA) - has received the first prize for the best communication of the international congress of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacist, held from March 24 to 27 of this year in Hamburg. This congress is the most important in Europe in the field of Hospital Pharmacy.
The award-winning work has consisted of studying the stability over time of the medicine for hospital use Remicade ™ (whose active principle is infliximab) once the container is opened, as well as of several common administration preparations, so that it can be optimized its use with total safety for the patient. The difficulty in this type of study stems from the complex nature of the monoclonal antibodies that constitute the active principle of these drugs. To carry out this research, a set of specific analysis methods and strategies have been developed for the study of the physical-chemical properties and biological activity of infliximab, which has allowed a deep and detailed study of its characteristics beyond the indicated by the manufacturer. The work presented was initially awarded with an oral communication, and after its defense, it was awarded the first prize. A summary of it has just been published in the special issue that the European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy (EJHP) dedicates to the papers presented at the congress.
The awarded work is part of a broader project recently completed -December 2014-, financed with Funds for Health Research from the Carlos III Institute (FIS-PI10-00201), entitled “Formal study and validation proposal of the indicator profile of the stability of drugs of a biotechnological (and chemical) nature under normal conditions of hospital use ”. The main researcher of the project has been the UGR professor Natalia Navas Iglesias and the collaborating researchers Antonio Salmerón García (specialist physician of the Hospital Pharmacy Area) and José Cabeza Barrera (head of the Pharmacy Service and director of the Clinical Management Unit), both of the University Hospital Complex of Granada. All of them have participated in the awarded work in addition to the doctoral students Inmaculada Suárez García, José Hernández Jiménez, Antonio Martínez Ortega, from the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the Faculty of Sciences of the UGR, and Salvador Ruiz Fuentes, Research fellow at the Complex University Hospital of Granada and who was the one who defended the work in the oral presentation.
The 20th Congress of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists was recently held in Hamburg (Germany). It is held every year and in this last edition nearly 4000 clinicians and researchers from all over Europe have participated, meeting to discuss all aspects related to the Hospital Pharmacy field. The number of papers presented in this edition has been 535 out of a total of 880 evaluated.