Development of a Vertically Integrated Pharmacy Degree.

Whilst curriculum revision is commonplace, whole degree transformation is less so. In this paper we discuss the rationale, design and implementation of a unique pharmacy program by a research-intensive faculty. The new Monash pharmacy curriculum, which had its first intake in 2017, was built using a range of key innovations that aimed to produce graduates that demonstrate key conceptual understanding and all the skills required to deliver world-best patient outcomes.

Roflumilast Powders for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Formulation Design and the Influence of Device, Inhalation Flow Rate, and Storage Relative Humidity on Aerosolization.

Roflumilast is currently administered orally to control acute exacerbations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, side effects such as gastrointestinal disturbance and weight loss have limited its application. This work aimed to develop an inhalable roflumilast formulation to reduce the dose and potentially circumvent the associated toxicity.

Structured Multi-Stakeholder Workshops to Advance a Global Transformative Roadmap for Pharmaceutical Workforce.

Unlabelled: In November 2016, the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) endeavored to create an environment to foster a shared vision to lead a transformative pharmaceutical workforce roadmap. Three milestone documents were developed and presented at the Global Conference on Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Education. Workshops with the key themes and connecting Pharmaceutical Workforce Development Goals (PWDG) were conducted and analyzed.

Impact of a Virtual Dementia Experience on Medical and Pharmacy Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Toward People with Dementia: A Controlled Study.

Background: Clinical practice guidelines for dementia highlight the importance of providing patient-centered care. This can be achieved by improving health professionals' attitudes and knowledge toward people with dementia.

Objective: Quantitatively evaluate the impact of a virtual dementia experience on medical and pharmacy students' knowledge and attitudes toward people with dementia.

Student Engagement with a Flipped Classroom Teaching Design Affects Pharmacology Examination Performance in a Manner Dependent on Question Type.

To investigate the relationship between student engagement with the key elements of a flipped classroom approach (preparation and attendance), their attitudes to learning, including strategy development, and their performance on two types of examination questions (knowledge recall and providing rational predictions when faced with novel scenarios). This study correlated student engagement with the flipped classroom and student disposition to learning with student ability to solve novel scenarios in examinations. Students who both prepared for and attended classes performed significantly better on examination questions that required analysis of novel scenarios compared to students who did not prepare and missed classes.

Strategies to analyse data obtained from liquid intrusion experiments of loose porous materials.

Liquid intrusion remains one of the most common methods to measure the contact angle of liquids to powders. However, as there are two unknown variables in the Washburn equation: the material constant (that is, the pore structure of the powder bed) and the contact angle of the liquid to the powder, this method requires the use of two liquids-a liquid of interest (the probe liquid) and a reference liquid. The reference liquid should, ideally, make a contact angle of 0° to the sample.

Developing a Framework for Objective Structured Clinical Examinations Using the Nominal Group Technique.

To use the nominal group technique to develop a framework to improve existing and develop new objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) within a four-year bachelor of pharmacy course. Using the nominal group technique, a unique method of group interview that combines qualitative and quantitative data collection, focus groups were conducted with faculty members, practicing pharmacists, and undergraduate pharmacy students. Five draft OSCEs frameworks were suggested and participants were asked to generate new framework ideas.

Enabling Noninvasive Systemic Delivery of the Kv1.3-Blocking Peptide HsTX1[R14A] via the Buccal Mucosa.

The peptide HsTX1[R14A] is a potent and selective blocker of the voltage-gated potassium channel Kv1.3, a well-recognized therapeutic target for autoimmune diseases. To overcome the poor oral absorption and consequent need for regular injections, the potential of the buccal mucosa for systemic delivery of HsTX1[R14A] was investigated.

Applying surface energy derived cohesive-adhesive balance model in predicting the mixing, flow and compaction behaviour of interactive mixtures.

Objective: In this study, we investigated the applicability of cohesive-adhesive balance (CAB) model to predict the interactive mixing behaviour of small excipient particles. Further, we also investigated the application of this CAB model to predict the flow and compactibility of resultant blends.

Methods: Excipients created by co-spraying polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP, a model pharmaceutical binder) with various l-leucine concentrations were used for this study.

Effect of the deformability of guest particles on the tensile strength of tablets from interactive mixtures.

In this study, we investigated the influence of deformability of specifically-engineered guest particles on the tensile strength of tablets of interactive mixtures. The binder polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) of different molecular weights were spray dried with l-leucine to create guest particle formulations. The guest particle formulations were characterized by their particle size, surface l-leucine concentration and glass transition temperature (Tg).

Relationship between the cohesion of guest particles on the flow behaviour of interactive mixtures.

In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects cohesion of small surface-engineered guest binder particles on the flow behaviour of interactive mixtures. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) - a model pharmaceutical binder - was spray-dried with varying l-leucine feed concentrations to create small surface-engineered binder particles with varying cohesion. These spray-dried formulations were characterised by their particle size distribution, morphology and cohesion.

Investigation of the Changes in Aerosolization Behavior Between the Jet-Milled and Spray-Dried Colistin Powders Through Surface Energy Characterization.

This study aimed to investigate the surface energy factors behind improved aerosolization performance of spray-dried colistin powder formulations compared with those produced by jet milling. Inhalable colistin powder formulations were produced by jet milling or spray drying (with or without l-leucine). Scanning electron micrographs showed the jet-milled particles had irregularly angular shapes, whereas the spray-dried particles were more spherical.

Pulmonary Delivery of the Kv1.3-Blocking Peptide HsTX1[R14A] for the Treatment of Autoimmune Diseases.

HsTX1[R14A] is a potent and selective Kv1.3 channel blocker peptide with the potential to treat autoimmune diseases. Given the typically poor oral bioavailability of peptides, we evaluated pulmonary administration of HsTX1[R14A] in rats as an alternative route for systemic delivery.

Particle Engineering of Excipients for Direct Compression: Understanding the Role of Material Properties.

Tablets represent the preferred and most commonly dispensed pharmaceutical dosage form for administering active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Minimizing the cost of goods and improving manufacturing output efficiency has motivated companies to use direct compression as a preferred method of tablet manufacturing. Excipients dictate the success of direct compression, notably by optimizing powder formulation compactability and flow, thus there has been a surge in creating excipients specifically designed to meet these needs for direct compression.

On the Methods to Measure Powder Flow.

The flow of powders can often play a critical role in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. Many of these processes require good, consistent and predictable flow of powders to ensure continuous production of pharmaceutical dosages and to ensure their quality. Therefore, the flow of powders is of paramount importance to the pharmaceutical industry and thus the measuring and evaluating of powder flow is of utmost importance.

Relationship between surface concentration of L-leucine and bulk powder properties in spray dried formulations.

The amino acid L-leucine has been demonstrated to act as a lubricant and improve the dispersibility of otherwise cohesive fine particles. It was hypothesized that optimum surface L-leucine concentration is necessary to achieve optimal surface and bulk powder properties. Polyvinylpyrrolidone was spray dried with different concentration of L-leucine and the change in surface composition of the formulations was determined using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time of flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS).

The role of physico-chemical and bulk characteristics of co-spray dried L-leucine and polyvinylpyrrolidone on glidant and binder properties in interactive mixtures.

In this study, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was spray dried with l-leucine (PVP-Leu) to create a prototype multifunctional interactive excipient. The physico-chemical and bulk properties such as particle size, surface composition, surface energy and bulk cohesion of PVP-Leu was measured and compared against pure spray dried PVP (PVP-SD). The mixing behaviour of these excipients and their effect on flow and binder activity of paracetamol was assessed.

An insight into powder entrainment and drug delivery mechanisms from a modified Rotahaler®.

This study aims to improve understanding of the powder fluidisation and aerosolisation processes unique to a split capsule dry powder inhaler. It uses a combination of dynamic real-time methods and a suite of powder material physicochemical characterisation methods. The study focused on examining the effect of different characteristics of lactose carrier employed, and considered specifically the powder fluidisation, entrainment and de-agglomeration mechanisms.

Effect of surface coating with magnesium stearate via mechanical dry powder coating approach on the aerosol performance of micronized drug powders from dry powder inhalers.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of particle surface coating with magnesium stearate on the aerosolization of dry powder inhaler formulations. Micronized salbutamol sulphate as a model drug was dry coated with magnesium stearate using a mechanofusion technique. The coating quality was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Understanding the interfacial properties of nanostructured liquid crystalline materials for surface-specific delivery applications.

Nonlamellar liquid crystalline dispersions such as cubosomes and hexosomes have great potential as novel surface-targeted active delivery systems. In this study, the influence of internal nanostructure, chemical composition, and the presence of Pluronic F127 as a stabilizer, on the surface and interfacial properties of different liquid crystalline particles and surfaces, was investigated. The interfacial properties of the bulk liquid crystalline systems with coexisting excess water were dependent on the internal liquid crystalline nanostructure.

Powder strength distributions for understanding de-agglomeration of lactose powders.

Purpose: The purpose was to calculate distributions of powder strength of a cohesive bed to explain the de-agglomeration of lactose.

Methods: De-agglomeration profiles of Lactohale 300(®) (L300) and micronized lactose (ML) were constructed by particle sizing aerosolised plumes dispersed at air flow rates of 30-180 l/min. The work of cohesion distribution was determined by inverse gas chromatography.

Insight into pressure drop dependent efficiencies of dry powder inhalers.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of three commercial capsule-based dry powder passive inhalers [Rotahaler® (RH), Monodose Inhaler® (MI) and Handihaler® (HH)] in de-agglomerating salbutamol sulphate (SS) and micronized lactose (LH300) powders and their sensitivity to air flow rate changes and air flow resistance.

Methods: Aerosolisation was assessed in real-time using a laser diffraction method: this approach was possible as only single-component formulations were tested. Volume percent of the aerosolised particles with diameter less than 5.

The kinetics of cohesive powder de-agglomeration from three inhaler devices.

Purpose: The purpose of the current investigation is to understand the kinetics of de-agglomeration (k(d)) of micronised salbutamol sulphate (SS) and lactohale 300 (LH300) under varying air flow rates (30-180l min(-1)) from three dry powder inhaler devices (DPIs), Rotahaler (RH), Monodose Inhaler (MI) and Handihaler (HH).

Results: Cumulative fine particle mass vs. time profiles were obtained from the powder concentration, emitted mass and volume percent <5.