Davide Fissore is full professor of chemical engineering at Politecnico di Torino (Italy), where he serves as dean of the chemical and materials engineering faculty. He leads the process system engineering group, whose mission is the use of mathematical models for the design and optimisation of manufacturing processes and the development of advanced systems for process monitoring and control. Freeze-drying of pharmaceutical products is one of the topics of investigation. In this framework, both first-principle and black-box models are used: while the first group is based on energy/mass/momentum balance equations, the second one relies on experimentally measured variables, used to get principal component analysis (PCA)/partial least squares (PLS) models, as well as artificial neural network (ANN) or fuzzy-logic based systems. Davide has authored more than 200 scientific papers, he holds about 10 patents, and a few years ago he co-edited the book “Freeze-Drying of Pharmaceutical Products” (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group).

Tino Fiedler has 13 years of professional experience as a key account manager in the areas of filtration, clean-room technology, and pharmaceuticals, giving him in-depth technical know-how and cross-sector expertise in special plant construction.

Previously, Tino was a business development manager at KÖGEL FILTER GmbH, where he mainly worked on the development of a wide variety of containment systems for freeze-drying applications.­­

Richard Denk studied mechanical engineering and did an examination on experts of GMP, qualification and validation, pharmaceutical auditing, pharmaceutical engineering, and quality control at the University of Applied Sciences in Albstadt/Sigmaringen, Germany. Richard works at SKAN AG, headquartered in Allschwil, as the head of sales containment, and eight years ago he founded the expert containment group of the ISPE DACH. The containment group published the Containment Manual in September 2015. Richard has spent nearly 20 years working with highly active/highly hazardous substances and has developed the containment pyramid.

Ashok Hajare is currently the Professor at Department of Pharmaceutical Technology (PG) at the Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Kolhapur (MS), India, a Lead college of Shivaji University Kolhapur, India. Post-graduate candidates in his laboratory are conferred the M. Pharm. degree in Pharmaceutics and Doctoral degree in Science and Technology by Shivaji University Kolhapur. His present research interests are geared towards understanding the mechanistic basis of new technologies in the development of cost-effective and stable dosage forms. The design of novel pharmaceutical techniques aids in the quality products with increased stability and effective in treatment of diseases. Towards this end, state-of-the-art technologies are employed that are complemented by stability studies and understanding of degradation mechanisms. The laboratory also integrates dosage form design and development studies with advanced pharmaceutics approaches to better appreciate the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of candidate drug molecules. Currently, Dr. Ashok is teaching at the Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Kolhapur for the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral programs, including advanced pharmaceutical technology, biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics, biomedical engineering, and pharmaceutical biotechnology. He has been awarded with many prizes for his contribution in the area of pharmacy education and research by various government agencies and NGOs. Dr. Ashok extends himself as a reviewer for several journals and has more than 72 publications in peer-reviewed journals to his credit. He also has twenty books published by national and international publishers.

Andrea Weiland, PhD, is managing director of Explicat® Pharma GmbH, a company providing technical project management services and pharmaceutical development services to the pharmaceutical industry (CMC).

Andrea is a pharmacist with a PhD in pharmaceutical technology on biodegradable microspheres and cyclodextrins. She held several leadership positions within Pfizer, working as project manager in process technology and within R&D, where she was a responsible scientist for pharmaceutical development (Phase I - III, candidate characterisation and lyophilisation projects).