On Monday, November 29th, the College of Pharmacy had a joint seminar between the college faculty research seminar and the master in drug discovery and development (MDD) seminar series. The seminar was given by Dr. Thanga Mariappan, Director, Head, Pharmaceutical Candidate Optimization (PCO), BBRC (Biocon- Bristol Myers Squibb Research & Development Center), Bristol Myers Squibb.
Dr. Thanga Mariappan is Scientific Director, Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Centre (BMS), Bangalore. He currently heads the department of Pharmaceutical Candidate Optimization at Biocon-BMS R&D centre, Bangalore. His area of expertise is in vivo metabolism and pharmacokinetics in early-phase drug discovery. He has about 16 years of research experience in pharmaceutical industry. His previous experience includes Senior Lead Investigator at Syngene International Ltd. (Bangalore); Senior Scientist at Nicholas Piramal Research Centre (Mumbai) and Research Scientist at Orchid Research Laboratories (Chennai).
Dr. Thanga gave a talk titled “Animal models used for mechanistic understanding of disposition of NCEs”. He focused on several animal models and experiments they are utilizing in the pharmaceutical industry related to drug discovery and the development of new chemical entities and how they make use of such models to assess the pharmacokinetics of new drug candidates.
Dr. Ahmed Thabet, chair of the department of pharmaceutical sciences and director of the MDD program, commented: the faculty and MDD students enjoyed the talk. We appreciate Dr. Thanga’s contributions to the program by providing insights about different aspects from the pharmaceutical industry relevant to drug discovery and development to our master students and his contributions as a member of the MDD program advisory board.