Dragons' Den organised by Industrial Pharmacy Network & CDT in Targeted Therapeutics and Formulation Science

Dragons (Arsalan Karim, Nicola Cardy and Colin Melia) with the Winners (Matthew Thornes and Jack Armitage)

The first Dragons’ Den in the School of Pharmacy, focused on creating a novel OTC medicine, was won by 2^nd year students Matthew Thornes and Jack Armitage for their product ‘PsoriAst’ -a novel spray formulation for treating psoriasis. Their strong pitch identified a gap in the OTC market for an easily applied formulation.   Whilst the runners up were Liz Watkins and Christopher Strong for ‘Begone’ a honey based product for acne and Tom and James Smith for ‘Jelly Relief’. The event was sponsored by the School of Pharmacy, Clinova and Boots Alliance and the Dragons were Arsalan Karim (R&D Director for Clinova), Dr Nicola Cardy (Senior Development Manager (Innovation) OTC & Positive Health) and pharmaceutical formulation expert Dr Colin Melia from the School.  The students will be supported and mentored by “the Dragons” to develop their ideas.

The Dragons’ Den was organised by a team of 4^th year students from the industrial pharmacy network lead by Yee Voon Cheok in collaboration with the Centre for Doctoral Training in Targeted Therapeutics and Formulation Science. Project officer for the CDT Dr Claudia Matz commented that “the students did an excellent job in organising the event “, whilst Dr Maria Marlow, Training Director for the CDT said that “it was great to see the enthusiasm and passion that the students had for their ideas”.