Event Website: http://mabdelivery.fr

Dear Friends, Dear Colleagues,

The annual “LabEx MAbImprove Industrial Workshops” are primarily intended to provide scientists involved in research on therapeutic antibodies with a comprehensive view about topics of interest for the pharmaceutical industry.
They are organized by the “LabEx MAbImprove Industrial Committee” and Polepharma, in partnership with the Groupe IMT and ARITT, the regional agency for innovation and technology transfer in the French Région Centre – Val de Loire. This is the lead region in terms of pharmaceutical production in France. The workshops are also closely linked with the “Biopharmaceuticals” programme supported by the French Région Centre – Val de Loire.

The 2015 workshop, the third in the series, is dedicated to MAbDelivery, the optimisation of all processes related to the arrival of a monoclonal antibody at its target site.

Intravenous injection is currently the main route employed for antibody therapy. Whilst this is advantageous in terms of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, the IV route also presents some disadvantages. For example, patients need to be dosed in clinic, which is inconvenient and costly. Also, in the case where targets are located deep inside certain organs, the innate structure of therapeutic antibodies makes it difficult to gain access using the IV method. In order to respond to these and other constraints, the pharmaceutical industry is developing new administration routes, which are more direct and patient friendly.

This work has led R&D teams to adapt the formulation of these therapeutic molecules. Each administration route presents different physicochemical challenges. For example, subcutaneous formulations need to be highly concentrated, whereas for the pulmonary route it is the air-liquid interface which must be carefully studied. The 2015 LabEx MAbImprove Industrial Workshop proposes to give an overview of these advances in therapy and open the discussion on new administration routes and formulation development.

The topics and speakers for the workshop have been carefully selected with this in mind and a meeting report will be published in the international journal MAbs. We expect around 200 delegates and have tailored the meeting to maximise the opportunities for interaction between presenters and attendees.

We look forward to welcoming and hosting you in Tours, on July 2nd 2015, and sincerely hope that you will join us to make this endeavour a success.

Pr Hervé Watier
LabEx MAbImprove coordinator, Tours

Dr André Pèlegrin
LabEx MAbImprove deputy coordinator, Montpellier