Last Updated on Wednesday, 3 November, 2021 at 9:21 am by Andre Camilleri
One of the missions that Zentiva has consistently pursued is to connect Academia and the Pharmaceutical Industry to accelerate drug development innovation and meet the unmet needs of the patients. Our company is pleased to resume the scientific exchange program as part of the ORBIS project, which was created within the largest EU grant programs HORIZON 2020, to connect European and American universities with Industrial partners at the scientific level.
Thanks to the experience gained in the health and safety of the working environment during the covid-19 pandemic as well as to massive roll-out of vaccination programs after 1,5 years Zentiva is reopening its laboratories to promising European scientists to further move pharmaceutical research ahead. In October, Zentiva welcomed its first of several new students who will be conducting their company research. Jernej Stukelj, who arrived in Zentiva for a three-month study stay from the University of Helsinki will dedicate his work in Prague to test novel dissolution methods that have been developed at his home university, using real-life examples provided by Zentiva.
“The cooperation within ORBIS represents an excellent opportunity for all partners. While academic research aims to increase understanding on the fundamental levels, the industry is providing real-life examples where academic hypotheses can be tested and further developed, providing new opportunities to learn to all involved partners. This is further increasing our innovation power aimed to develop difficult to make generics and value-added medicines, meeting currently unmet needs in healthcare,” comments Pavel Šebek, Development Director at Zentiva.
Since the beginning of the partnership in 2018, Zentiva has offered sixteen medium-term research stays – so-called secondments, thanks to which both parties have been enriched with novel scientific and industrial approaches and procedures that will in the long-term help patients. Zentiva’s strong involvement in the ORBIS project was also confirmed through the co-organization of a summer school in 2019. It was organized together with the University of Helsinki and strongly focused on dosage forms and novel drug delivery systems. In 2020, although the coronavirus pandemic significantly reduced cross-border exchanges within ORBIS, the partners managed to adapt and continue the work up to the extent it was possible to reach under given circumstances. From our company’s side two scientific papers, authored by the visiting scientists and experts from Zentiva, were published based on collaborative research activities.
Already now, the results of the research performed within ORBIS reached thousands of people. As a long-term result of ORBIS, all the partners believe that deeper scientific understanding and a strong network between academia and industry will shorten the drug product development process, mitigating the risk of failures, making new drug products more accessible and affordable for society.
