Pharmacy Formulation & Practice Research Unit

Aston School of Pharmacy – Birmingham Children’s Hospital Partnership

Formulation is a particularly important area of paediatric medicines research, since the lack of ‘child-friendly’ preparations often leads to greater potential for dosing errors and subsequent effects on therapeutic outcome or adverse events. An area of particular concern is that of extemporaneous dispensing (e.g. the crushing of tablets followed by dispersion in a suspending agent), since the resulting formulations are rarely characterised for their pharmaceutical quality, whilst the excipients employed in order to act, for example, as preservatives or to enhance organoleptic properties, may also pose potentially fatal toxicity and health related risks, particularly in the very young.

Given these issues, current research efforts within the Pharmaceutics research group at Aston University – in close partnership with nearby Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH)– aim to investigate both current practice and future development of novel dosage forms, through exploitation of existing and emerging drug delivery technologies.

For example, current collaborations between BCH and other European centres are aimed at reviewing the use of “specials” and/or extemporaneous preparations with a view to developing strong pharmaceutical profiling of these medicines.  The overarching aim is to construct an evidence base for use of these medicines in practise. Furthermore, numerous investigations are also underway with regards the use of alternative taste-masking technologies (e.g. microencapsulation, use of cyclodextrins) and also alternative, age-appropriate formulations such as Orally Disintegrating Tablets (ODT) (solid dosage forms containing medicinal substance, which disintegrate rapidly – usually within a matter of seconds – when placed upon the tongue).

Pharmacy Practice researchers from Aston Pharmacy School, working closely with a range of healthcare professional staff from Birmingham Children’s Hospital, are interested in how the pharmacist can improve and optimise the impact medicines can make within the specialist environment of a secondary care paediatric environment. Drawing on a wide-range of specialist expertise, researchers aim to improve paediatric medicines management and pharmacotherapeutic clinical governance to optimise the benefit paediatric patients can gain from their medicines.

Clinical Pharmacy research benefits from close collaboration between Aston Pharmacy School and the Pharmacy Department of Birmingham Children’s Hospital which is strengthened by joint appointments across the two organisations. Practicing senior clinical pharmacists are well placed to identify therapeutic issues that relate to the clinical management of children both in the hospital setting and at home. In close collaboration with medical staff clinical researchers support prescribing for this complex patient cohort through the provision of appropriate decision support tools and through identifying and evaluating novel therapeutic options.

Another important aspect of paediatric drug delivery is the development of effective vaccines.  The Pharmaceutics research team at Aston has extensive expertise in the pre-clinical development of vaccines against diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV, with a proven track record of translating research into human clinical trials.