Short description of the track contents

The track Pharmaceutical Design and Engineering is designed for the student who wishes to focus on the more technological side of drug research to tackle the current challenges such as chronic diseases, resistance to antibiotics and an ageing population. Pharmaceutical Design and Engineering is a rapidly growing domain both nationally and internationally. To illustrate this, the number of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) advice requests handled by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) reached nearly 300 since the first submission in 2009. This includes gene therapy medicinal products (GTMP), somatic cell therapy medicinal products (sCTMP), and tissue engineered products (TEP). Altogether, this illustrates the growing need for scientists active in the pharmaceutical design and engineering domain to meet the R&D need at industry. The recent move of the EMA (News EMA) to Amsterdam only reinforces the urgent need for locally trained experts in this area.

The Pharmaceutical Design and Engineering track focuses on fields such as medicinal chemistry, biotechnology, drug design, innovative therapeutics, pharmacology and analytical biochemistry. The track is broadly accessible in view of the various preparatory courses and is well connected to the international student. In addition to a series of specific courses focused on pharmaceutical design and engineering, the track offers the possibility to execute MSc research projects within the above mentioned fields. The University of Groningen is very well connected to other national and international Universities enabling a second research project elsewhere in the Netherlands or abroad.