A New Tool for Oral Solubility Enhancement: Discover the Potential of Apinovex™ Polymers

Nick DiFranco, MEM, is the Global Market Segment Manager for Oral Drug Delivery and Novel Excipients at Lubrizol Life Science. In his role, Nick coordinates a multi-disciplinary team offering excipients and services for controlled release and solubility enhancement in oral solids and liquids, including Carbopol® and Apinovex™ polymers. Prior to this role, Nick held positions as an Applications Scientist and Market Manager at Lubrizol supporting long-acting drug delivery and CDMO services. Nick holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering (Biomaterials focus) and a Master of Engineering and Management degree from Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Kushwah is Principal Research Scientist (Advanced Formulations) at Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering (RCPE), Graz, Austria. Before joining RCPE, Dr. Kushwah worked as PDP Research Scientist (Formulation) at Pfizer. He completed his Ph.D. in 2017-18 in the Centre for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology group at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), SAS, NAGAR, Mohali. He is the recipient of international fellowships during his Ph.D. tenure, i.e., 2016-2017 Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship, issued by United States-India Education Foundation (USIEF) and 2016 Commonwealth Split-Site Scholarship by Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) in the UK. Dr. Kushwah also received 2016 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Scotland Group Ph.D. Student Competition award for best Ph.D. research work. Dr. Kushwah is interested in nano-drug delivery platforms, bioconjugate systems, and advanced solid-oral formulations. He is also actively working on developing models for predicting in-vitro release profiles of biodegradable long-acting injectables (LAI), accelerating its progress to market.

Liliana Miinea, Ph.D. is a Technology Manager with Lubrizol Life Science. Her work focuses on developing new technologies for pharmaceutical applications mainly in the area of controlled release, drug solubility enhancement and enhanced mucosal delivery.  She has over 20 years of experience in developing and characterizing ingredients including nanomaterials, polymer/nanomaterials composites, and novel excipients.  Prior to Lubrizol she worked at Avantor Inc., NJ and conducted postdoctoral research at Washington University in St. Louis, and Center for Nanomaterials Research at Dartmouth College, USA. Liliana holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Houston, TX.