Under the supervision of the Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Professor Dr. Sarmed H. Kathem Alkhateeb, the Continuing Education Unit at the University of Baghdad/College of Pharmacy held an in-person workshop entitled “Nanodispersion: Promising Research with Scarce Market Presence”, delivered by the Lecturer Dr. Nawar Mikhael, a faculty member at the Pharmaceutics Department.
The workshop aimed to shed light on the existing gap between academic progress and industrial application regarding nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems, with a particular focus on nanodispersions, attributing this gap to a set of regulatory, manufacturing, and economic challenges.
The workshop included several topics, one of which was highlighting the significant expansion of scientific research in this field over recent years, contrasted with its limited presence in the pharmaceutical market. Moreover, challenges faced by this technology were reviewed, including the ones from the industrial perspective, were nanodispersions face difficulties in transitioning from laboratory-scale formulations to full-scale production, due to the need for precise equipments and strict manufacturing standards to maintain the stability and uniformity of nanoparticle formulations. Also, many of these systems suffer issues, such as agglomeration or degradation over time, rendering them unsuitable for commercial storage and distribution.
On the regulatory front, the speaker emphasized the absence of clear and specific guidelines from major health authorities, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which complicates the registration and approval process of nanodrug products.
Furthermore, the financial burden associated with developing this type of systems was discussed, in terms of the cost of raw materials, specialized devices, and long and complex analysis and evaluation requirements, which discourages some pharmaceutical companies from investing in this technology, especially in the absence of guaranteed market returns.
The workshop concluded that nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems, despite their limited current presence in the market, still represent a promising scientific trend, awaiting progress in the applied and regulatory aspects to take their actual place in the pharmaceutical industry.