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
March 5, 2023 · News
Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 goes to Prof. Benet
The Board of Directors of the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines, together with its Scientific Advisory Committee, has decided to honor Professor Leslie Z. Benet, PhD from the University of California San Francisco with the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2023.
This recognizes Professor Benet’s extraordinary achievements in the field of pharmaceutical science and his outstanding contributions to improving the quality and effectiveness of medicines. As a result of his scientific work, Leslie Benet has received numerous awards throughout his scientific career as well as honorary doctorates from nine universities
The award ceremony will take place on May 15, 2023, as part of a scientific congress organized by EUFEPS (European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences) on the draft of the first bioequivalence guideline of the International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) in Frankfurt am Main.
October 25, 2022 · News
Paxlovid stability confirmed
The results of the stability studies initiated by the FFQM on Paxlovid tablets available on the market have now been published in Deutsche Apotheker Zeitung No. 42 of October 20th, 2022, p. 3708-9. The content was determined by high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometer detection. The mean content of nirmatrelvir was determined to be 100.3%, i.e. there is no evidence of any relevant degradation of the active substance. The investigations were carried out at the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research, Nuremberg-Heroldsberg.
October 15, 2022 · News
Shelf-life extension Paxlovid® – the rationale alternative to discarding expired batches
Do the Paxlovid® packs already delivered to pharmacies and medical practices need to be discarded timely or by the beginning of 2023 at the latest if the printed shelf-life has been expired? Media reports revealed that the federal government had stockpiled large quantities of the product at the end of 2021 as a precaution in order to avoid a bottleneck in the supply of the patients. However, the prescription rate fell short of expectations in the first nine months, with the result that a number of packs will expire in November 2022 or early 2023.
However, discarding is not inevitable. Rather, a shelf-life extension would be possible in case of proven longer stability in “follow-up” stability tests. Against this background, the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines initiated investigations into the stability of Paxlovid® tablets collected from the market. The results did not indicate a decrease in the labelled content of active drug ingredient nirmatrelvir or increased levels of degradation products. Therefore, in a published statement, we have suggested extending the expiry date for the packs that have already been delivered, based on the results of follow-up stability investigations conducted by the manufacturer.
September 29, 2022 · Prices and Awards
Presentation of the "Pearls of Bioequivalence Award" at the GBHI conference in Amsterdam
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM) and the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS) honor outstanding contributions to the optimization of concept, design and evaluation of bioequivalence with the „Pearls of Bioequivalence Award“. The decision on the winners is made jointly by the two organizations on the basis of proposals from the steering committee of the EUFEPS Biopharmaceuticals and Bioavailability Network.
The award ceremony for both 2022 and 2021, which had to be postponed due to COVID restrictions, took place at the Global Bioequivalence Harmonization Initiative (GBHI) conference on September 28 in Amsterdam. We congratulate the award winners Prof. Marival Bermejo, Universitat Miquel Hernández de Elche and Dr. Eduard Molins, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya.
September 18, 2022 · Prices and Awards
Dr. Cathrin Hauk received the “Quality of Medicines Award” 2022
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM) and the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG) awarded the joint »Quality of Medicines Award« at the annual Meeting of the DPhG on September 16th. This year’s award winner is Dr. Cathrin Hauk, University of Oxford/UK. With this prize her dissertation »Investigations and identification options for inferior and counterfeit medicines to improve the quality of medicines in low- and middle income Countries« (Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen) was honored.
Quote from the doctoral thesis: »Securing the quality of medicines worldwide is one of the major health policy challenges of our time and the basis for general health care, which is anchored as goal 3.8 in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.« We congratulate Dr. Hauk, who made an important contribution to quality transparency with her investigations.
June 21, 2022 · News
Prof. Henning Blume was honored with the Presidential Distinction Award 2022 of EUFEPS
Prof. Henning Blume was honored with the Presidential Distinction Award 2022 of EUFEPS
Prof. Henning Blume, chairman of the board of the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines, was honored with the Presidential Distinction Award 2022 of the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS). The ceremony was held on the EUFEPS Annual Meeting 2022 which took place in Leiden from 1 – 3 June combined with the Dutch Medicines Days organized by FIGON (Federation for Innovative Drug Research).
The award was given to Henning Blume for outstanding achievement in exceptional leadership, dedication, and support to the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences (https://www.eufeps.org/start.html).
