DPT Laboratories welcomed more than 20 students from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists student chapter at the University of Texas College of Pharmacy Pharmaceutics Department to tour its San Antonio facilities on March 25.
"This tour allowed the students to see first-hand the extent of our operations beginning with pharmaceutical development activities such as formulation and method development through commercial manufacturing," said Kay Mary Harrell, senior director of R&D CMC regulatory affairs.
Nearly 20 DPT scientists and technicians met with the students to give an overview of activities that take place at the company’s Research & Development and Semi-solids & Liquids Centers of Excellence. The students visited over a dozen departments starting with a morning tour of R&D, which included the formulation analytical development and validation, raw material testing and quality control laboratories as well as DPT’s packaging engineering department.
"It’s important to get students in here to not only see what we have and participate in a hands-on learning experience, but they also see what we’re capable of," said Jason Vaughn, director of formulation development. "Many of the students were impressed with our scientists and surprised to see the level of technology commitment to drug development from a company in the contract space. Hopefully some of these students may become interested in working at DPT or remember our capabilities while working at other pharmaceutical companies."
After the R&D tour, students moved to the manufacturing facility, which included an overview of raw materials flow and testing, a tour of the compounding cells, packaging line centers, microbiology and finished product testing labs.
"I think it’s very important for the students to see the translation from basic research to full pharmaceutical drug development," said Dr Salomon Stavchansky, UT College of Pharmacy Alcon Centennial professor. "The fact that DPT develops and manufactures semi-solids and liquids is very significant. The students had the opportunity to learn more about the manufacturing process and quality control measures required for good manufacturing processes."
Vaughn and Harrell, both graduates of UT’s College of Pharmacy, added that an experience like this is helpful to demonstrate the scale and scope of theoretical learning students get in the classroom. Vaughn said he hopes DPT will continue offering these experiences to pharmacy students in the future.
Stavchansky said: "Being in the business of education research, I feel lucky to have a partner like DPT to assist in providing the students with the necessary tool kit to succeed in their lives."