Dr Supriya Shidhaye, a veteran in pharmacy education, has been chosen for the award for the best research by the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Trust for her project to combine orally disintegrating tablet to treat paediatric asthma.
 
Dr Supriya, currently the principal of Vivekanand Education Society’s College of Pharmacy in Mumbai, has been selected for national award for the best research project. The award will be conferred to her next month at Pune.
 
According to her research, the two commonly prescribed prescribed drugs --Theophylline and Levocetirizine dihydrochloride –can be combined as a disintegrating tablet in a particular dosage regimen for the cost effective and patient compliant treatment of paediatric asthma.
 
“Theophyliine is incorporated as sustained release microcapsules and Levocetirizine dihydrochloride is incorporated as immediate release taste masked component. The novelty of combining orally disintegrating concept with sustained release is to provide benefit in many aspects to the patients. It will provide a benefit of pleasant taste, sustained action along with reduced frequency and convenience of administration. No such formulation of combination of these drugs is available in the market,” she said, adding that she had applied for a patent for the same.
 
Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Trust awards are given in various categories to honour the professionals in the pharmacy sector.
 
A Ph.D holder in pharmaceutics, Dr Supriya has been in the profession of pharmacy teaching for over two decades and she has over 40 published papers to her credit. She has been engaged in development of novel drug delivery systems. She is also an expert in stability study guidelines and protocols, validation techniques for dissolution and analytical methods, drug excipient compatibility studies and statistical data evaluation. She received best paper award for poster presentation at 50th IPC and 17th Asian Congress of Pharmaceutical Sciences on `Reorienting pharmacy education: need of today.’