Tag: Healthcare

How to get serious about sleep – for you, your customers and your bottom line

September 20th 2018

Alan Cucknell 

Clare Beddoes

Clare Beddoes 

Head of Drug Delivery

There is growing scientific evidence, media coverage and public awareness of the impact of sleep on our health. Not just how you feel today, but for your long-term health and productivity. Reduced quality or duration of sleep, even in those without a “chronic” sleep complaint such as insomnia or sleep apnoea, has been linked to increased risk of many medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity, cancer1, damage to the immune system, reduced tolerance to pain and reduced ability to cope with stress. In fact the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described insufficient sleep as a ‘public health epidemic’2.

But this is much much bigger than just a lifestyle or healthcare concern, this ‘epidemic’ of poor sleep has far-reaching economic consequences3. A recent study by the Rand Corporation put the cost of poor sleep to the U.S. economy at $411 billion/yr. So as Professor Matthew Walker (author of ‘Why we sleep’) argues, there seem to be pretty compelling reasons for all of us to “reclaim the right to a full night’s sleep”.

So, what are the implications of this sleep issue for your customers, and for your business?

As this interest in sleep grows, we are seeing a change in behaviours and spend. For some it is a return to “old tech” e.g. paper books for reading, less TV before bed, alarm clocks separate to smartphones. We may see a return to “old routines” such as earlier or healthier meal times, which in turn changes grocery shopping habits. It may even encourage adoption of “low tech” spaces (e.g. keeping phones and computers out of the bedroom), or “sleep spaces” such as Casper’s “Dreamery”. But while there are 100’s of products claiming to improve one’s sleep experience – from mattresses, pillows, sleep trackers, lights, apps and nasal strips, through to medical products to treat serious conditions … there remains considerable need for products that can translate the growing scientific evidence into tangible and effective sleep solutions. We see significant opportunities for new entrants that can address these needs in a way that doesn’t pitch “tomorrow’s health” against “today’s fun” and that can help consumers to build positive habits and relationships with their own sleep.

And let’s not forget the cost of poor sleep to companies and economies, should we also be reassessing the way we work? Is it really good to provide that free coffee and caffeinated soft drink? Are our travel schedules and policies appropriate given our improving understanding of sleep. Are there ways that employers (and those organisations that serve companies and workers) can address this?  Should we leave it to employees, or as employers, should we be “nudging” people, given the huge benefits to our businesses and society of better sleep? We’d love to know what do you think.

At CDP we’re passionate about improving lives through innovation, we provide solutions to everyday life affecting issues like sleep and its effect on health, happiness, creativity and productivity.  You can read more about one example of our recent work to improve sleep outcomes with ICON Health & Fitness here.

If you are interested in improving how people sleep, or how a fresh perspective on opportunities in sleep can help you and your company – please do get in touch.

1 https://www.aaas.org/news/sleep-deprivation-described-serious-public-health-problem
2 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627640/
3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627640/

The fast track to drug delivery device development

The fast track to drug delivery device development

July 11th 2018

Caroline Zakrzewski 

How fast is fast? I’ve always been told that when it comes to drug delivery devices, ‘fast’ development is usually measured in years rather than months – with additional years for industrialisation and transfer to manufacturing. In fact, there are drug delivery devices which have been in development for more than 20 years. This makes it all the more demoralising if an issue which requires a change is identified after approval, as this development process may have to start all over again.

What if I told you there was another way?

We have recently helped a large pharmaceutical company with such a conundrum. The subject was an established drug delivery device out in the field which had experienced failures under specific environmental conditions. Changing the device itself was not considered a feasible option due to the nature of the issue and the timescales involved, so another route had to be found. The innovative solution involved the rapid design, development and manufacture of a specialised storage container that was supplied to the market within a year of its conception.

How did we do it? We engaged the client in an agreed vision of what a solution looked like and what the key motivators were – which markets were involved and what the regulatory framework looked like. Early on, the solution was identified and a clear set of requirements helped to pave the way through the process. In our experience, setting out clear, tangible and testable requirements can reap huge dividends in time and cost saved during the testing and verification stages of a project. This particular project was multifaceted and often, in projects like this, communication between departments can add unnecessary delays to reviews and decision making – particularly when cross-functional groups are involved. By integrating key functions such as quality and manufacturing in the core project group, reviews and decision making were streamlined – saving months’ worth of time.

Consider, as an example, the part approval of an injection-moulded component. A typical process would involve sending parts from the moulder to the metrology house and to the customer for feedback, this then takes time to assess and agree – and can take weeks or months, depending on the number of iterations. With our moulding expert and quality engineer on site at the moulding company, and a local metrology house engaged, the project progressed to part approval in less than a fortnight.

Rapid delivery of projects like this is not easy – they require focused and diligent planning, and a knowledgeable team which is able to respond quickly to resolve issues that are inevitable in any product development. It makes me proud that I’m part of such a team at CDP, where we’re able to make the improbable happen.

Why healthcare professionals deserve a good user experience

June 15th 2018

Any company wants their customers to covet and love their products or services because this is the way to becoming the market leader. But for products used by healthcare professionals (HCPs) in a clinical setting, usability is traditionally associated with safety. With so many regulations to meet, delighting the user usually comes way down the list of priorities.

Human factors and usability engineering is a process to mitigate the risks which occur when products are used. It has been required for regulatory approval for more than 10 years now. If companies cannot prove their products are safe to use, then they won’t be approved. However, whilst safety is a basic requirement, we believe it is important to think more broadly.

In recent years, the quality of consumer products has improved exponentially. Thanks to the magnificent work of usability gurus and user experience (UX) evangelists, UX has become an integral component of innovation and product development. People’s expectations are constantly updating in an ever-upwards trajectory.

Think just for a moment about where you work. I bet you use loads of tools that are lacking in ‘user friendliness’ compared with the gadgets you have at home. I imagine you are truly thankful when you discover something that seamlessly integrates into your working day and supports your every requirement as if by magic. Something that saves you time and that you enjoy using!

It’s no different for the equipment used by our increasingly busy HCPs. Whilst they rarely choose the equipment they use, they should be considered as ‘consumers’ nonetheless.

Consider ‘Nurse Sarah’, working very long hours in a high-pressure environment such as A&E, she’s often very tired and has huge demands on her time and skills. Why should she be expected to use monotone grey-cream equipment, with dot-matrix displays from 20 years ago, spending time scrolling through menus to find the correct setting, fighting through complex instruction manuals to find out how to operate it? Often equipment design just impedes and frustrates, leading to all sorts of ‘workarounds’. The risk of user error with such unintuitive devices is huge when time is at a premium.

Yet we expect ‘Nurse Sarah’ to be there to make us better and perhaps to save our lives. So why are so many medical devices designed without her needs in mind?

When we are asked to develop any type of medical device, we always take a user-centric approach – regardless of the category of end user – because we believe it is essential to look at the whole user journey, in the same way we would do for a consumer product. This helps us identify how a job is currently being carried out and uncover the potential opportunities for improvement, be it packaging, design, functionality, instructions for use or the user interface. We do this with a multidisciplinary team, drawing from front-end-innovation experts, HCPs, mechanical, electronic, software and human factors engineers, medical researchers and product designers. They create a shared understanding of users and stakeholders, their requirements and their challenges, as well as the use environments. This empathy then informs every facet of the development process.

Designing for the HCP user as a ‘consumer’ is not at the cost of safety – indeed, a better user experience and improved safety go hand in hand.

So next time you set about designing a new medical device, please remember that ‘Nurse Sarah’ is your ‘consumer’. Make her a product that is not only safe but intuitive and rewarding to use. She will not only love you for it, she’ll be your product’s greatest advocate.

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Innovating disruptive products within all health and wellness

May 9th 2018

Most of us don’t take action often enough when it comes to improving our health. For many, the standard of care is bare bones: we find the time to schedule a visit to the doctor, listen attentively for the few minutes the doctor is speaking, and then implement the one or two ‘must haves’ to keep our bodies going. Unfortunately, the still-dominant culture in healthcare is: I’m the patient, you’re the provider. Fix it.

Health and wellness includes how we interact with our healthcare providers as well as proactively manage our wellbeing. Almost every decision we make (what we eat, when we exercise, how much we sleep, etc.) can be linked to our health. The personal challenge to keep up is daunting and therein lies the massive opportunity of consumer health – helping consumers seamlessly and credibly engage with their health.

There are many organisations rising to the challenge. However, innovation in this sector is no small task. Given the complexities of regulatory affairs and quality systems, many consumer teams struggle with the health aspect. Given the fast pace and seductive necessity of everyday products, many health teams struggle with the consumer aspect. The right innovation capabilities can help fill the gaps.

There are four key elements when it comes to successful innovation in the health and wellness space:

A multidisciplinary team spanning all phases of product development from ideation to pilot manufacturing
Experience of both the consumer and medical space
The engineering diversity and scientific depth to understand the technical complexities of a product strategy
A method of evaluating the commercial potential of new opportunities

The healthcare industry is changing and patients are becoming consumers. Businesses that understand this and have the right innovation capabilities to develop compelling products and services will reap huge rewards.

anders-jilden-150790-unsplash

Accelerating innovation in healthcare

March 5th 2018

Matt Brady 

Our healthcare clients do amazing work on complex designs with strict oversight and regulations – which are necessary to ensure medical products are safe and efficacious. But when we collaborate, our combined teams can greatly accelerate programmes, prompting the common question: “What are we doing to move so fast together?”

Having worked on hundreds of projects, we have seen some patterns that consistently help an innovation team move quickly. There are three common elements that support rapid progress:

  • Good project management processes and culture
  • A focus on resolving the programme unknowns through early prototyping and testing
  • Supportive quality management structures

Let’s look at each in of them in more detail.

Good project management processes and culture

Managers of fast and effective teams tend to ensure that there are four key building blocks:

  1. Feasible goals – ambitious goals are great but there should be a believable pathway and support that adapts to evidence to help reach the most important goals
  2. Trusted workstream leaders and decision makers – so informed decisions can be made rapidly, communicated effectively and not revisited unnecessarily
  3. Unanimous purpose – goals that are unambiguous, worthy and supported by key sponsors, whether driven by commercial pressures, new user and clinical insights or regulatory change
  4. A healthy tolerance for uncertainty – this enables ambition, empowers the team to identify and manage development risks as early as possible, and means that the team (and sponsors) are not easily discouraged by the slippery patches (unexpected learnings) that many fast projects hit.

Prototype early, often and at an appropriate fidelity

Creating and testing prototypes as early as possible drives learning and produces evidence and confidence for development decisions at every stage. By prototype, I mean any tangible embodiment of an idea from which we can gather realistic feedback. Getting creative prototypes (sketches, models, storyboards, interfaces, etc.) in front of users reveals insights and unforeseen variables, gets everyone on the same page about complex ideas and clarifies key assumptions. Doing this early, often and at appropriate fidelity to answer the questions at hand (starting with low fidelity and building from there) is critical to exploring the solution space fully, informing analysis and sidestepping cycles of deliberation. By focusing on key uncertainties, iterations of prototypes will avoid delays and the cost overruns often caused by ‘sweeping these difficulties under the carpet’.

Supportive quality management system

It’s important to design quality management structures that support the first two elements –  as well as helping to assure the quality of your deliverables and supporting the building of your design history file for regulatory compliance. For example, can teams support the manufacture of short-run prototypes for testing in a clinical environment? Can the creation of ‘design inputs’ evolve with evidence from prototype testing? Are there protocols for non-clinical user studies that do not have significant risks? Does properly referenced documentation enable you to adopt evidence-based changes without massive documentation rework? Processes that insist on a ‘right first time’ project structure will typically restrict speed and slow the pace of learning without improving specifications in the end.

These three elements will come more naturally to some – but we believe that any organisation can adapt these insights gradually into their own innovation approach. Give it a try!

How drug delivery is getting smarter

February 3rd 2018

Conor Devine 

As Europe’s dedicated pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery event, Pharmapack is the industry’s go-to place to kick off the year. At least that’s what the event website says and, after my visit, I’m inclined to agree.  With 411 companies exhibiting their services in everything from primary, secondary and tertiary packaging to drug delivery devices or anti-counterfeiting systems, there was certainly plenty to see.

Thinking about the trends and where the industry may be going, a few things became apparent as I walked the floor:

  • As my colleague Jez Clements also noted at the recent consumer tech show CES in Las Vegas, the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) is most definitely here. The ability to track and log the amount of medication being taken by a patient, as well as the time of day (and sometimes GPS location…) – and uploading this data to an app or the cloud in real time – was offered in everything from eye droppers to blister packs. The claimed advantages of this additional functionality were most often the ability to either increase the efficacy of clinical trials or provide extra features to improve the user experience.
  • Many companies have clearly been putting the user front and centre in their design process. The innovations that stood out were those where human factors was obviously considered throughout the design process, resulting in user-friendly products which were able to hide complex functionality behind pleasingly simple features.
  • It was interesting to see how developments in the industry are enabling more and more drugs to go from requiring administration by a healthcare professional in a controlled environment to being able to be administered by the patient in the comfort of their own home. For example, a wearable injector – able to accurately administer large volumes of viscous drug, automatically, over extended time periods – is undoubtedly an extremely convenient and deskilled platform that has the potential for a wide array of uses.

I found the claim that smart packaging and connected devices can be used to dramatically reduce the pain of a clinical trial particularly interesting. Average costs of getting a drug through all phases of clinical trials are upwards of $1bn – so anything that can be done to reduce costs, increase results accuracy, remove unnecessary time sinks and/or gain crucial user insights in clinical trials has huge potential to benefit patients in the long term. Yet how do smart packages and connected devices claim to be able to do any of these things?

Mostly it is down to enabling cheap and accurate tracking of patient compliance, with some solutions offering the added bonus of encouraging better patient adherence behaviour, too. Compliance is a notoriously difficult thing to monitor and poor compliance can add a huge additional cost to trials, with larger populations being required than ideally necessary to achieve accurate results. Traditional compliance monitoring methods are either very costly, using pharmacological markers which also add extra complexity and time to a study, or unreliable – checking prescription records does not indicate drugs have been taken and patients often overestimate their compliance when interviewed.

Smart packaging enables the number of pills removed from the package, time of day, and sometimes even the GPS location of the patient, to be stored in a database and wirelessly transmitted to a smartphone in real time. Connected devices can go even further. As these devices are integral to administering the drug, they can state with confidence that a specific dose was delivered and automatically transfer data on where the drug was administered, how much and how ‘correctly’ too. If you factor in that the included smartphone apps can teach patients correct administration – using feedback from the sensors in the connected devices to offer personalised tips – then you can see how the time and effort in managing clinical trial patients drops off whilst adherence improves.

One of Schreiner’s smart packaging solutions at Pharmapack was a blister pack which has a printed electronic circuit integrated into the package. Removing a pill breaks an electrical connection and triggers the pill number and time to be stored in a database before being transmitted to a smartphone via Bluetooth or NFC. Similarly, Baswen’s IoT bottle cap uses an infrared sensor to monitor effectively the same thing but from a pill bottle. It has, however, added ‘adherence-improving’ functionality to its device by including a timer alert, linked to the user’s smartphone which reminds the user when their next prescribed dose should be taken. Simple, yet undoubtedly effective.

Ypsomed had a great example of a connected device. An add-on shell that attaches to any of Ypsomed’s auto-injectors, the SmartPilot platform has a multitude of sensors in the device which can detect that skin is present throughout the injection and if the injection procedure was undertaken correctly, partially correctly or very much incorrectly. Very useful information which is difficult to check – patients generally will assume they have injected correctly!

Meanwhile, Nemera’s offering of e-Novelia – a connected eye-dropper device – had some great, simple features that solve some of the main pain points when trying to drop liquid into your own eye. An ergonomically designed eye-piece ensures the device is held consistently in the right place on the face and a tilt sensor indicates to the user, via LED, when the device is vertical and ready to dose. It also had a plethora of extra features such as location tracking, drop detection and a connected app (of course!) but it was the simple, yet effective, human factors features that grabbed my attention.

But even with all this technology on show, it was clear to me that the crucial ingredient required to come up with the best solutions is putting the patient at the centre of the drug delivery development process.

Conor Devine LinkedIn Profile

A crucial ingredient for successful drug delivery device development

January 17th 2018

Bastiaan de Leeuw 

Coming back from the Christmas and New Year break, I realised how blessed I am. I’m in good health, I’ve been able to spend enjoyable time with my family and I’ve now returned to my exciting job surrounded by a team of enthusiastic and very smart people.

For many people, the Christmas period means longstanding traditions, bringing different generations of people together and including extensive travel to reconnect with friends and family –disrupting daily routines. That’s fine for those of us who are fit and healthy. But it can be difficult for some people to cope with – those affected by a long-term illness, for example.

Travel and the breaking of routines can cause problems for people who suffer from the so-called diseases of ageing – such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease – or younger people burdened with chronic conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It can affect the management of their disease and require changes to their therapy regimen. They may need to adjust their drug intake to different time zones, for example, or make special arrangements for the transport and storage of their drugs at a certain temperature, as well as carrying around delivery systems such as injection devices and inhalers.

All this is on top of the normal day-to-day management of a long-term illness – which can often be complicated enough for the patient. Even the simplest routine – such as swallowing a tablet at the right time – can prove difficult for some patients. Memory problems, for example, might make it difficult for an elderly patient to reliably take their medication at the right time – and leave them at risk of accidentally overdosing or not getting enough of the drugs.

That’s why user insights are crucial to successful drug delivery device development. We use our unique diialog™ service – a combination of miniature sensing technology and sophisticated algorithms – to unlock the secrets of a truly patient-centric device. Trial users of a new product often tell you what they think you want to hear. With the help of diialog, we can discover what really happens – whether the device is used correctly and the drug is stored at the correct temperature, for example, or whether an elderly patient struggles to remove the cap. These valuable insights can then feed back into a new generation of drug delivery technology to help patients cope with their therapy regimen – both at home and when out and about.

Which brings me neatly back to the subject of travel – I’ll be travelling extensively with my drug delivery colleagues in the coming weeks to showcase the diialog service and highlight the crucial role of user insights. We’ll be at the Drug Delivery Partnerships event in Florida next week, where my colleague Uri Baruch will be speaking about the future of drug delivery and the crucial role of user insights. And at Pharmapack in Paris in February, we will be presenting our vision of smart devices and their integration with a new generation of packaging.

At the Global Drug Delivery & Formulation Summit in Berlin in March, my colleague Tom Lawrie-Fussey will be talking about how we use diialog to enable informed design development decisions. Meanwhile, I will be moderating an industry panel at the summit, discussing how user insights can help with the selection and development of appropriate drug delivery systems.

So a busy time for us in the drug delivery team. But with one clear focus – putting the patient at the heart of every drug delivery device development.

Brexit's potential impact on medicine regulation

Brexit’s potential impact on medicine regulation in the UK and EU

December 14th 2017

Louise Place 

Currently, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for just under a third of applications and updates for European medicinal product marketing authorisations – but on 29 March 2019 the UK will no longer be part of the European Union (EU).

I was struck by the enormity of the challenges ahead when I attended a recent meeting staged by The Organisation for Professionals in Regulatory Affairs (TOPRA). The title of the meeting was: ‘Preparing for the future: a conversation with the heads of medicines agencies’.

Change is nothing new in medical regulation – over the last year or so we have already familiarised ourselves with changes relating to European device submissions. For example, changes to the Medical Devices and In Vitro Diagnostic Directives (evolving into the Medical Devices Regulation and In Vitro Diagnostic Regulations respectively) as well as the pending Clinical Trials Regulation and update to the Falsified Medicines Directive. We’ve also adapted to changes to the Quality Management System standard for Medical Devices (ISO 13485) and are keeping a close eye on those being discussed for the Risk Management standard (ISO 14971).

However, this will pale into insignificance compared with the changes resulting from the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU. Currently, on the departure date of 29 March 2019, the UK will become a ‘third country’ and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is preparing for the worst-case scenario. There are two key aspects:

1. Continuing to market in Europe – companies that wish to continue to supply the EU, and currently hold marketing authorisations from the MHRA in the UK, would need to transition to a new European agency. Additionally, those based in the UK would need to appoint an authorised representative within an EU country, as non-EU-based companies are already required to do. I was surprised to hear that this may affect 6,000 medicinal products – no small task.

2. A new process for the UK – things won’t get easier, either, for those wanting to market in the UK. Currently, little is known about what the requirements for marketing in a post-Brexit UK might be – but there is likely to be some impact. My personal view is that, in the short term at least, the requirements won’t be too different from those in the EU. But what this will look like in the medium to long term, as viewpoints diverge, is currently anyone’s guess.

When, post Brexit, the UK’s MHRA can no longer authorise medicines for the EU market, there will be a significant additional workload for the remaining 27 member states. Add to this the recent announcement of the EMA’s relocation from London to Amsterdam – with the associated challenge of staff retention and recruitment – as well as the prospective implementation of a new process for the UK, and suddenly the 16 months remaining to Brexit don’t seem like very long at all!

injection device event (PDA)

The top five themes at a recent injection device event

November 22nd 2017

Jez Clements 

Head of Capabilities

On returning from Vienna and PDA’s excellent Universe of Pre-filled Syringes and Injection Devices event, I wanted to share my thoughts on some of the themes I saw emerging from the conference:

1. Hearing the voice of the patient direct – during the pre-conference workshop, Markus Bauss from SHL presented two talks by actual patients with long-term conditions. Dominic Voglmaier was able to attend in person to talk about his challenges with type 1 diabetes and his desire to not let it affect his marathon and endurance training. It was both powerful and reaffirming to hear the real user stories directly and without filter – but left no room for doubt that all the available solutions can get better.

2. Maturing approach to connectivity – my colleagues and I have received many approaches from people who are looking to add connectivity into their devices but, like all features in a product, it has to deliver tangible benefits to justify costs. The PDA event marked a welcome change in emphasis within the drug delivery sector, with many of our client conversations focused on the patient, and how such technology could enhance the user experience. Indeed, this migration from tech-led approach to one where the patient is central is something we see from our work in other markets, where the value of the experience is increasingly migrating from the product to the service it enables. Our work in medical therapy has led to us advising dialysis equipment manufacturers on future-proofed system architectures that will enable interconnectivity of their machines, potentially leading to seamless decision support. In turn, this also enables them to better safeguard their client relationships and protect their brand equity. Clearly connectivity is key to all this but such developments must be pursued whilst maintaining a clear vision of all stakeholder benefits.

3. Normalisation of healthcare solutions – more and more devices available on the market include insights and features more commonly seen in the consumer world. The devices no longer predominantly look like something to keep hidden – they have a feel and quality that patients may even wish to show off like a new phone. We demonstrated our new Klarus auto-injector hub in Vienna, which got significant attention on our stand, where the simplicity of use (think the Nespresso of auto-injectors) highlighted just how far a patient-centric approach could be taken. This move towards offering a personalised patient experience is very much consistent with consumer products, where devices such as powered toothbrushes now offer feedback and training (a 3D mouth map) via an interactive smartphone app.

4. Rapid innovation cycles (RICs) – the pharma world has been accused for a long time of being slow to innovate and risk averse. Justin Wright for Lilly gave an excellent talk on the power of RIC cycles that push engineers and technologists to develop concepts through to demonstrators in a matter of weeks. This approach highlights the immense learning that is achieved by rapidly creating a device in a physical form to find the weaknesses that maybe couldn’t be expected or quantified theoretically.

5. A more collaborative approach by companies – I was very proud to co-present our diialog work with Markus Bauss of SHL, and also very interested in the presentation by Brian Lynch of West Pharma on its work with Matchstick, Noble and HealthPrize, comparing the benefits of various connected solutions. I firmly believe that it is rarely the case that one company can truly produce and deliver to market a device that really has the potential to meet all user and stakeholder needs.

Of course, it was also great to meet old colleagues, collaborators and friends at the infamous PDA party!

New building (18)

New phase of growth in drug delivery

November 7th 2017

Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has announced the appointment of drug delivery industry veteran Bastiaan de Leeuw as it embarks on a new phase of growth in the sector. As head of drug delivery business development, he will be driving CDP’s expansion into new markets around the world.

Bastiaan will be working alongside CDP partner and head of drug delivery Uri Baruch, who has overseen huge growth in the sector over the past five years. Uri’s drug delivery team has delivered a variety of projects – ranging from an award-winning needle safety device and an emergency auto-injector to pen injector packaging designs for drug delivery devices and inhalation products – including successful regulatory submissions in both the US and Europe.

“I am delighted to welcome Bastiaan to our growing world-class team,” said Uri. “He has a wealth of knowledge and experience of the industry that will be invaluable as we continue our record-breaking growth.”

In his long and diverse career, Bastiaan has held a string of senior posts in organisations such as Cambridge device design and development company Oval Medical Technologies and medical device development and manufacturing firm Bespak. He has particular expertise in combination products – but has also spent five years working in diagnostics as CEO of molecular diagnostic research and service company NovioGendix, now part of multinational healthcare company MDxHealth. He has a degree in biopharmaceutical sciences from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“I am excited to be joining the CDP team at such an interesting time, as the drug delivery group continues its phenomenal growth,” said Bastiaan. “I am looking forward to bringing together the varied strands of my healthcare career to help clients around the world translate opportunities and challenges into real-life drug delivery devices for the benefit of patients.”