Dr. David Brayden is Full Professor of Advanced Drug Delivery at the School of Veterinary Medicine and a Fellow of the UCD Conway Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge and did a post-doctoral research fellowship at Stanford University. Afterwards, he set up Elan Corporation’s pharmacology laboratory in Dublin, where he became a senior scientist and project manager. In 2001, he joined UCD as a lecturer in veterinary pharmacology and rose to the rank of Full Professor of Advanced Drug Delivery. His major research interests are in oral peptide delivery. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 research publications and patents. In 2012, he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the Controlled Release Society. Professor Brayden serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of several peer review journals. Professor Brayden works as an independent consultant for drug delivery companies.

1.       What was your inspiration to get into the industry?

I am a bit unusual in a European context because I went from academia to the drug delivery industry and back again to academia over a 10 year period.  My industrial appointment at Elan drug delivery in Ireland in 1991 came out of an opportunity and good timing and a realisation that I had technical skills around the understanding of epithelial biology that could be leveraged in industry.

2.       What is your favourite part of presenting to a live audience?

If a presentation is going well and you are reaching most of the audience, you can feel the connection in the room – it can be very powerful and can allow a talk to hit heights that you do not get in a practice.  It is also gratifying if you get good questions, because this means that you have engaged well.  Of course this doesn’t always happen!

3.       What are you looking forward to explaining to the audience?

I want this audience to realise that there is still potential for oral peptide delivery to be successful, but that the field is in a more realistic phase of what can be done with peptides that are of lower molecular weight and are more stable than the candidates of the past. The era of platform delivery technologies claiming 10-20% oral bioavailability is from the 1990s, whereas the modern view is that we have some technologies that are specific for individual payloads and that 5% bioavailability could be adequate for some.

4.       Where is your favourite place in the world and why?

I travel a lot and almost have second home at Dublin airport, so usually on weekends I take a walk on my own down Dun Laoghaire pier in Dublin or out to the Wicklow hills with family and friends. No matter where I am during the week, the beautiful areas near my home are  where I aim to be during time off.

Join David as he discusses ‘Overcoming Barriers to Non-invasive Delivery of Macromolecules‘ in the Catalent webinar. Register now!