The College of Engineering, supported by the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, recently held Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Day, an event designed to foster collaboration and bring focus to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.
The day-long event was chosen to take place on Sept. 8, to recognize National Essential Medicines Shortage Awareness Day, featuring a dynamic program of keynote speakers, invited talks, technical presentations, idea lab sessions and a poster exhibition. A majority of these speeches focused on methods of creating pharmaceutical products in a more cost-efficient way, as a means of lowering the price of related medicines.
Plenary Speakers:
B. Frank Gupton, Ph.D.
Floyd D. Gottwald, Jr. Chair in Pharmaceutical Engineering; Chair, Professor, Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering
"Central Virginia: A Center of Excellence for Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing"
Kelechi C Ogbonna, PharmD, MSHA
Dean, VCU School of Pharmacy
"Rising to the Healthcare Challenge: Workforce, Cost, and Innovation"
Invited Speakers:
Mo Jiang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Chemical and Life Science Engineering
“Manufacturing Uniform and Tunable Pharmaceutical Crystals Using Slug Flow”
Thomas Roper, Ph.D.
Director of Pharmaceutical Engineering, Engineering Foundation Professor of Chemical and Life Science Engineering
“Self-Driving Pharmaceutical Processes”
James Ferri, Ph.D.
Professor & Associate Department Chair of Chemical and Life Science Engineering
“Managing Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Lifecycle with Model Based Systems Engineering”
After the speakers presented, there was an ideas lab session, where students, faculty and industry members formed teams to create and pitch a transformational pharmaceutical technologies and manufacturing project.
The winner of the ideas lab, Team ABC, was awarded $1,000 to jump-start bringing their project, “Manufacturing Collaborations with Industry and Academia: K-12 Focus”, to fruition. The members of the team include two VCU CLSE graduate alumni Dr. Kendra Brinkley of Reynolds Community College and Dr. Debbie Campbell-Rance of Virginia State University, current VCU CLSE graduate student Kimberly Penzer, current CLSE faculty member Dr. Leah Spangler, Dr. Cornelia Kavenugo-Johnson of Brightpoint Community College, Dr. Stephanie Mabry of US Pharmacopeia, and Betsey Odell of Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing.
Last year, stakeholders in the Richmond-Petersburg region, including Virginia Commonwealth University, were awarded nearly $53 million as winners of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. This funding, which came from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, has gone toward pharmaceutical manufacturing research and development.
Funding from the Build Back Better Regional Challenge has made events like Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Day possible.