General provisions

The course is part of the Master's Programme in Pharmaceutical Modelling and the Master's Programme in Drug Discovery and Development.

Entry requirements

150 credits of which 120 credits in biomedicine, pharmaceutical science, natural science and/or technology. Prior studies should include 10 credits in chemistry and 7.5 credits in pharmacology. Proficiency in English equivalent to the Swedish upper secondary course English 6.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, the student should be able to:

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

• Describe and justify the role and importance of the various disciplines involved in the different phases of drug discovery and development
• Account for decision points in the drug development process
• Explain how methods for predictions are used to make early decisions in drug discovery and development

COMPETENCE AND SKILLS

• Carry out searches to retrieve information relevant to the development of a new drug.
• Construct, review and evaluate preclinical and clinical pharmaceutical studies with a general understanding of aim, choice of procedures, results, conclusions and importance.

JUDGEMENT AND APPROACH

• Evaluate scientific, ethical and market-related considerations of importance in drug development.

Content

The course deals with the different phases in drug development: Identification and optimisation of active substance towards a selected macromolecular target, ADME-Tox profiling, in-vivo and in-vitro pharmacology, formulation, biomarkers and disease models, clinical trials, registration and commercialisation.

Instruction

The course consists of lectures, oral and written presentations, workshops, seminars and self-study of literature. The course may be given in English.

Compulsory parts of the course: workshops and literature work

Assessment

The examination will take place at the end of the course. To pass the course one must: pass the examination (examination code) and receive a passing grade in the literature work (examination code), besides taking part in the compulsory parts of the course.

Re-taking failed compulsory parts of the course can occur, at the earliest, at the next course and then only if the course is not full.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of the assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.

Other directives

This course substitutes and corresponds to 3FK029.