A UNIVERSITY of Reading professor has won a prestigious fellowship grant to support new drug development.
Prof Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy received a Royal Society Industry Fellowship in recognition for his work, which utilises adhesive substances in pharmaceutical preparations.
The award is worth £180,000 and will support the university’s continued research to help support business and innovation.
Prof Khutoryanskiy, of Reading School of Pharmacy, said: “When we treat an area of the body such as the mouth, eye or bladder, with topical medicine, there is a tendency for the drug to be washed away by the wet environment.
“This Fellowship is a great opportunity to see if we can make these drugs a bit more efficient. For example, we are working on substances that adhere well to the surfaces on and around the eye, and therefore increase the effectiveness of drug delivery via eye drops.”
The Industry Fellowship supports academics to split their time between an academic institution and an industry partner.
Prof Khutoryanskiy will look to develop the collaboration between the university and MC2 Therapeutics, a Guildford-based commercial stage pharmaceutical company, to apply knowledge about sticky substances to drug delivery.
The fellowship will run for four years and covers his salary, plus an allowance for research consumables.
