Welcome to the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines
Every day, medicinal products make a decisive contribution to prevent diseases – especially serious ones – or alleviating ailments, extending the life expectancy of patients and improving their quality of life. In addition to our high expectations of the efficacy and safety of medicines, the pharmaceutical quality of the products is also particularly important with regard to patient care.
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM) is committed to promoting research activities that are designated to optimally assure the quality of medicinal products in Germany and Europe or, if necessary, further improving them, especially if they are manufactured outside the country. Main concern is the development of advanced processes, the implementation of innovative technologies and their standardization as well as a critical verification of quality assurance concepts.
Download the FFQM flyer here (PDF-File, ~200kB)
Recent news
April 17, 2024 · Prices and Awards
Pearls of Bioequivalence Award 2024 goes to Prof. James Polli
We congratulate Professor James E. Polli, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy, who is this year’s winner of the Pearls of Bioequivalence Award. The prize is awarded jointly by the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM) and the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS). The award goes to the publication of Prof. Polli:
“Lack of an Effect of Polysorbate 80 on Intestinal Drug Permeability“, Pharmaceutical Research (2022) 39:1881–1890 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11095-022-03312-zis
This prize was awarded at the Global Bioequivalence Harmonization Initiative (GBHI) conference on April 16 in Rockville/MD by the Chairman of the foundation’s Board, Professor Henning Blume.
April 11, 2024 · News
“Medicinal products with pH-dependent solubility - A problem for BA/BE assessment?” FFQM enables Open Access to this ICH M13A commentary.
We are pleased that, following the conference report on the EUFEPS Open Forum on the ICH M13A Draft Guideline (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejps.2024.106741), a commentary on the draft guideline „Medicinal products with pH-dependent solubility – A problem for BA/BE assessment? has now also been published in the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The FFQM has sponsored open access to the article in order to provide free access to all scientists interested in optimizing drug quality.
The publication can be accessed at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejps.2024.106756
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
March 17, 2024 · Prices and Awards
Hans-Günter-Schäfer Award 2024
„I hope you will take this award as motivation for your future research as a scientist“. With these words, the Chairman of the Frankfurt Foundation congratulates this year’s winner of the Hans Günter Schäfer Science Award, Ms. Yomna Nassar (Freie Universität Berlin). The prize, endowed with 1,000 euros, is sponsored by the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM).
The award was presented on 15 March on the occasion of the PKPD expert meeting in Isny, which is organized by the Association for Applied Human Pharmacology (AGAH). The past president of the AGAH, Dr. Andreas Kovar, and this year’s chairman of the meeting, Dr. Alexander Staab, present the prize to Yomna Nassar after her summary of the main results of the award-winning publication.
March 10, 2024 · News
Open Forum on ICH draft Bioequivalence Guideline: Conference Report published
We are happy to announce that the Conference Report of the EUFEPS Open Forum on the ICH draft M13A guideline (Bioequivalence) has been published and the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines could support this by funding its open access publication.
The paper can be downloaded via: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejps.2024.106741
March 5, 2024 · News
Quality of Medicines Award 2024 announced.
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM) and the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG) jointly award the the Quality of Medicines prize 2024 for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of optimizing and ensuring the quality of drugs. We would like to support fundamental investigations into the quality of drugs on the market as well as innovative concepts to improve them.
Applications can be submitted electronically to the DPhG office (info@dphg.de) or to the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (info@frankfurt-foundation.org) until July 15, 2024.
January 29, 2024 · Funding Projekts
Funding project successfully completed: “Detection of unexpected impurities in finished medicinal products”
We are pleased that this project, funded by our foundation and led by Prof. Dr. Oliver Scherf-Clavel, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, was successfully concluded with very positive new findings. The results were recently published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpba.2023.115955
The accidental discovery of unexpected contaminants may result in a drug recall. Basically, the question of which contaminants are discovered is determined by the choice of analytical method. Therefore, quality control procedures often fail to detect unexpected contaminants.
Using losartan as an example, the project looked for previously undescribed contaminants by combining an untargeted screening method with high-resolution mass spectrometry. In this way, the presence of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and another impurity from the synthesis could be revealed and four further impurities could be detected through a subsequent targeted evaluation using extracted ion chromatograms. Through such combined analysis approaches, changes in the quality of medicines can be detected early and responded to accordingly.
