Professor Alastair Florence

Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences

Personal statement

Director of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC) and associated 45 PhD Doctoral Training Centre. Leads the new world-class CMAC National Facility within the Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) at the University of Strathclyde offering access to academic and industrial users to state-of-the art processing, analysis and characterisations facilties and support. Expertise in crystallisation and physical form control and characterisation of pharmaceuticals spanning polymorphism, solvate, co-crystal and salt formation and studies of amorphous systems. Extensive experience in the formation of pharmaceutical particles in continuous processes using a range of technologies as part of the CMAC programme. Interests also in the development and application of new technologies to control and monitor crystallisation and pharmaceutical solids.

Approaches for the characterisation of particles are also widely used and physical analysis of crystalline pharmaceuticals with a focus on the influence of crystallisation processes on structure and critical pharmaceutically relevant attributes that dictates product performance. Exploitation of X-ray powder diffraction techniques for phase identification, structure determination from powder diffraction data and in-situ phase surveys including local order using variable-temperature X-ray powder diffraction are key areas.

Has published over 120 peer reviewed research papers in these areas and currently supervises a large multidisciplinary research group including pharmacists, chemists and chemical engineers.

Prizes and awards

Best Poster Award @ CMAC Annual Open Day 2018: Recipient; 25/10/2018
Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain Conference Science Medal: Recipient; 9/2004

more prizes and awards

Publications

Reversible two-step single-crystal to single-crystal phase transitions between desloratadine forms I, II and III: Srirambhatla Vijay K, Guo Rui, Dawson Daniel M, Price Sarah L, Florence Alastair J; Crystal Growth and Design (2020); https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.9b01522
A micro-XRT image analysis and machine learning methodology for the characterisation of multi- particulate capsule formulations [Video Abstract]: Doerr Frederik JS, Florence Alastair J; (2020); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpx.2020.100041
A micro-XRT image analysis and machine learning methodology for the characterisation of multi- particulate capsule formulations: Doerr Frederik JS, Florence Alastair J; International Journal of Pharmaceutics: X Vol 2 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpx.2020.100041
Why we need continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing and how to make it happen : a summary of thoughts from the international symposium on continuous manufacturing: Badman Clive, Cooney Charles L, Haslam Robert T, Florence Alastair, Konstantinov Konstantin, Krumme Markus, Mascia Salvatore, Nasr Moheb, Trout Bernhardt L, Baddour Raymond F; Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Vol 108, pp. 3521-3523 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xphs.2019.07.016
Digital design and operation of continuous crystallization processes via mechanistic modelling: Mitchell Niall, Mack John, Tahir Furqan, Brown Cameron, Islam Muhammad, Robertson John, Lopez-Montero Eduardo, Florence Alastair; AIChE Annual Meeting 2019 (2019)
Use of terahertz-Raman spectroscopy to determine solubility of the crystalline active pharmaceutical ingredient in polymeric matrices during hot melt extrusion: Bordos Ecaterina, Islam Muhammad T, Florence Alastair J, Halbert Gavin W, Robertson John; Molecular Pharmaceutics Vol 16, pp. 4361-4371 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.9b00703

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Professional activities

Britest Process Understanding Day: Speaker; 22/1/2020
Town Hall Meeting - Manufacturing the Future utilising the UK’s Large Facilities: Speaker; 21/1/2020
Gordon Research Conference on Crystal Growth and Assembly: Invited speaker; 23/6/2019
Centre for International Manufacturing, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge: Visiting researcher; 21/6/2019
MMIP Annual Conference: Participant; 20/6/2019
EPSRC Hub Directors Meeting (Event): Member; 11/6/2019

more professional activities

Projects

Doctoral Training Partnership 2018-19 University of Strathclyde | Pereira Diaz, Laura: Florence, Alastair (Principal Investigator) Johnston, Blair (Co-investigator) Pereira Diaz, Laura (Research Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2019 - 01-Jan-2022
NF204: Florence, Alastair (Principal Investigator); 23-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2019
measure X-PDF data and use PDF modelling and calculations to gain understanding of amorphous materials _ student placement: Florence, Alastair (Principal Investigator); 02-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2020
Master Development Manufacturing Services Agreement CMAC National Facility NF179: Florence, Alastair (Principal Investigator) Price, Chris John (Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2019 - 30-Jan-2019
Pressure-dependent In-Situ Monitoring of Granular Materials: Florence, Alastair (Principal Investigator) Halbert, Gavin (Co-investigator) Markl, Daniel (Co-investigator) McArthur, Stephen (Co-investigator) Nordon, Alison (Co-investigator) Oswald, Iain (Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2022
Takeda 2017/18 Proprietary Project: Florence, Alastair (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2018 - 30-Jan-2020

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Address

Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
Technology Innovation Centre

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