Janet Hoogstraate obtained her PhD from Leiden University in the Netherlands in Biopharmaceutical Sciences and an executive MBA from Hult International Business School in London, UK. She is associate professor at the Department of Pharmaceutics at Uppsala University. During her research career she has worked at the University of Utah, University of Iowa and in various positions at AstraZeneca R&D. As the director of DMPK in AstraZeneca she headed a group of 63 scientists working in the entire value chain of pain and neurology drug development projects. 

She is co-author of more than 45 papers and book chapters. Currently, Janet holds the position of director of Biovation Park at Acturum Life Science AB building a business and science park and incubator in Södertälje for life science companies and academic groups. She also hold various board positions such as chairman of the board of the Stockholm Brain Institute.

1. Catalent are a loyal customer of ours and have delivered an extensive number of webinars with us; can you tell us what you have learnt from running this webinar?

Start planning with BRW as early as possible and touch base regularly to make sure there is flawless execution. Better understand your targeting audience and select the right timing, title and content.

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

Drug development is challenging in many aspects. Often scientists focus on strong pharmacology in the discovery phase and less on delivering the pharmacology to the right target in the body in on optimal time and concentration profile. That leaves a big hurdle to overcome in early development. Selecting technologies and planning your development early yet in a flexible way can provide a smoother way though drug development.  

3. If you could only ever listen to one song forever, what song would it be?

With music now so easily and abundantly available I don’t want to think about listening to only one song! But one I can listen to over and over again is Personal Jesus by Depeche mode, especially in a live version.

4. If you had to live in a TV show for a month, which would you choose?

I would love to be part of an expedition or a travel program. Spending time in a different country getting to now both the culture and exploring the nature would definitively be an good way to spend a month.

5. What would you like to achieve in the future?

My professional ambitions are to revitalize life science by connecting small companies and researchers and finding ways to deliver new treatments to patients by new constellations and smart processes. Outside professional life, I would like to advance my off-piste skiing skills. 

Janet will be presenting Catalent’s webinar ‘Early Technology Selection for Optimized Drug Development‘ with Christer Johansson, CEO/Owner, BiQ Pharma and AQPS Academy of Quality in Pharm Science and Julien Meissonnier, Director of R&D, Catalent Pharma Solutions. You can register for their webinar taking place on the 23rd March at 11am New York/3pm London here.