SSPC Investigator and Chemical Science lecturer Dr Sarah Hudson, Bernal Institute, University of Limerick, has been awarded H2020 Marie Curie ITN funding. Sarah will work with Dr Luis Padrela, University of Limerick, Prof. Gabriele Sadowski, Technische Universitat Dortmunt (TUD), Dr Bruno De Witte, Janssen Pharmaceutica and partnering with SSPC Investigator Dr Lidia Tajber at Trinity College Dublin. The project called LongActNow will fuse the capabilities of these four significant international academic and industrial centres with specific expertise in crystallisation, solution behaviour, modelling, solvent switching, pharmacokinetics and formulation.

The project is based on long acting (LA) medicines for complex therapeutics needed now and will work on developing long acting injectable suspensions of drug particles.

LongActNow will advance European research in the field of crystallisation technologies, more specifically the design, development and optimization of prediction and production technologies to produce medicines with well controlled physical and pharmacological properties.

The project will produce five Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) trained in crystallisation and formulation to a PhD level. This will include a unique capability to optimise the stability and duration of activity of injectable suspensions for complex APls and will nourish the creativity, entrepreneurship, management and business skills of ESRs in the domain of drug development and manufacturing.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) 2019 call for Innovative Training Networks (ITN) under Horizon 2020 supports the training of early-stage researchers. The ITN scheme supports competitively selected joint research training and/or doctoral programmes, implemented by partnerships of universities, research institutions, research infrastructures, businesses, SMEs, and other socio-economic actors from different countries across Europe and beyond.