Hospital Pharmacy and Research

Abstract

Hospital pharmacies play a crucial role in managing and/or accompanying the entire drug handling process, from the drug's origin all the way through the hospital system to the patient, and to promote rational and appropriate drug use. Drug preparation – still part of this process – has not disappeared from the fields of activity of hospital pharmacists. However, this activity is bound to many legal constraints and, therefore, remains reserved to a limited circle of hospitals that can offer such services. Based on a national license (Swissmedic), the Institute of Hospital Pharmacy of the University Hospital of Basel offers opportunities to provide drug preparations according to current guidelines. These preparations include patient-individualized drug preparations (compounding) to fulfil special needs in oncology, dermatology, paediatrics and other disciplines. Additionally this national license enables our institution to prepare drug preparations for clinical research. This is the basis of an important activity of our institute: to prepare clinical research samples for the pharmaceutical industry and for clinicians at the university hospital, to support industry independent research, and to conduct our own research in biopharmaceutics in collaboration with other national and international institutions. Against this background we report on our research support activities, and, in more detail, on our own research and development programs in biopharmaceutics: dermal and intranasal bioavailability.