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
August 24, 2023 · Funding Projekts
Detection of unknown impurities in medicinal products
Goal of the project „SFC-based purity method development for the enantioselective separation of mepromazine and dapoxetine and their impurities“, is the detection of known and also unknown impurities in medicinal products. Our foundation decided to support this research activity due to its significant practical relevance. Initiator and supervisor of this research project which included two diploma theses is Professor Dr. Ulrike Garscha, Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Greifswald.
Supercritical Fluid Chromatography should be used in this funding project to develop a procedure fully validated according to EMA guidelines which subsequently can be applied for analyses of marketed medicinal products. The detection and identification of unknown and unexpected impurities in medicinal products containing chiral active ingredients is of great practical relevance to improve drug quality on the market.
August 2, 2023 · Funding Projekts
Quality Requirements for Nanomedicines: Filling the Gaps
Nanotechnology is considered to be one of the key technologies for innovative medicines that can be used to overcome previously unsolved or unsatisfactorily resolved therapeutic challenges
The essential goal of this project, funded by the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM), is to identify and, where possible, close methodological gaps in the characterization of nanomedicines and to provide proper data analysis to support quality requirements for nanomedicines. The project is designed and conducted by Dr. Ines Nikolic, postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Gerrit Borchard at the University of Geneva, and in collaboration with Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials (EMPA) Science and Technology and University of Belgrade – Faculty of Pharmacy.
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines is waiting with great interest for the first results of this important research project.
June 29, 2023 · Funding Projekts
Funding project: Detection of unexpected impurities in finished medicinal products
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines is now funding a total of four experimental study projects. Today we would like to briefly introduce the first one. This is focused on the analysis of possible contaminations of active pharmaceutical ingredients using losartan as an example. The occurrence of unexpected impurities in finished drug products – e.g., in valsartan preparations in 2018 – had elucidated how important the development of sophisticated analytical procedures is when creating impurity profiles.
Professor Dr. Oliver Scherf-Clavel is responsible for this project. Together with other scientists he had previously examined various sartans for nitrosamine impurities using a high-resolution chromatographic system (QqTOF-LC/MS). They were able to discover unexpected contaminations that could not be detected with the common methods (e.g., those suggested by the pharmacopoeia).
The research project supported by our foundation now aims to develop a general procedure for the „untargeted“ analysis of active drug ingredients in order to be able to discover unknown – and above all unexpected – impurities. This project is of great practical relevance for drug therapy as drug safety finally ensures patient safety.
Professor Oliver Scherf-Clavel was the award winner of the FFQM/DPhG 2021 „Quality of Medicines Award“ during his time as a junior professor at the Julius-Maximilians-University in Würzburg. This award recognized his research work on the contamination of valsartan and other sartans. Scherf-Clavel was recently appointed to the W2 professorship for „Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy“ at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.
May 18, 2023 · Prices and Awards
Congratulations, Prof. Leslie Benet - Lifetime Achievement Award presented
The Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM) Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Professor Leslie Z. Benet of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for his outstanding achievements in the field of pharmaceutical science and his contributions to improving the quality and efficacy of medicines awarded.
The award ceremony took place on May 15, 2023 at the end of a scientific congress in the Frankfurt Airport Conference Center. The draft of Part A of the ICH M13 Guideline on Bioequivalence of immediate release dosage forms was discussed and commented on in the „Open Forum“ initiated by the EUFEPS (European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences) and organized jointly with the Working Group for Pharmaceutical Process Engineering (APV).
The winner, Professor Benet, was presented with the certificate and the Gömböc, the traditional sculpture for the FFQM Lifetime Achievement Award, by the founder and Chairman of the Foundation, Professor Henning Blume.
Professor Benet is already the third scientist whose life’s work has been honored with a Gömböc by the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines.
April 22, 2023 · News
Hans-Günter-Schäfer Award 2023
This year’s winner of the Hans Günter Schäfer Award is Dr. Robin Michelet (Free University of Berlin). The prize, which is endowed with 1000 euros, is donated by the Frankfurt Foundation Quality of Medicines (FFQM).
The award was presented on April 21 at this year’s PKPD expert meeting in Nauen, organized by the Working Group for Applied Human Pharmacology (AGAH). Past President of AGAH, Dr. Andreas Kovar, and the chairman of the FFQM, Prof. Dr. Henning Blume, congratulate Dr. Michelet.
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.
