CHEM 392 is a core course for students enrolled in BSc. Specialisation in Medicinal Chemistry. This course will prepare students for advanced Medicinal and Pharmaceutical courses at the post-graduate level and for jobs in the pharmaceutical industry. This course covers a broad range of issues that are important in the design, development, and marketing of new pharmaceuticals. Students are introduced to the Ministry of Health's policies on drug regulatory framework and how Pharmac/Medsafe decides on drug subsidies in New Zealand and the rationale for it. There is then a module of 5-6 lectures given by patent attorneys on ways of protecting intellectual property and patent law in the pharmaceutical industry as well as litigation. We cover new screening methods in which drugs are discovered and a module on the use of computational tools in drug discovery as well as how we can use AI in drug discovery.
Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) in the pharmaceutical industry which includes GMP policies is covered, technical aspects applied to process development delivered by Douglas Pharmaceuticals which culminates in a site visit to a local pharmaceutical company
We discuss scale-up of active pharmaceutical ingredients and the ways to approach this safely and provide real-life examples. The course has 2-3 lectures dedicated to the different aspects of clinical trials including design of clinical trials, drug formulation and ethical considerations. Several examples of successful -FDA approved drugs and their development carried out in the University's research labs are given as 4-5 hours of lectures by scientists in the field. Commercialisation models for intellectual property developed in the university setting are also covered in this course.