About us

Dr. Hans Lennernäs is the professor of Biopharmaceutics at Uppsala University, Sweden since the 1^st of July 2000 and he was an adjunct professor of Biopharmaceutics at Copenhagen University, Denmark between 2000 and 2012. His research focus is on developing novel strategies of tissue drug targeting and delivery with the aim to improve the clinical use and efficacy of drugs in various disease states, such as metabolic and cancer diseases. He has been the Principal Investigator in an extensive collaboration between the Food & Drug Administration, USA, the University of Michigan, USA, and the Medical Product Agency, Sweden during several years to develop a new guideline for the Biopharmaceutics Classification System. He has established an extensive human permeability database (45 compounds) that today is widely used in academia and in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Lennernäs has been the chairman for numerous international conferences. He serves as a reviewer for several scientific journals in clinical pharmacology and pharmaceutical science. His work had led to more 200 publications, 320 invited lectures and more than 350 submitted presentations at scientific meetings. He is a well-cited author with more than 12 500 citations and a H-index of 54 (web of science). He has supervised 28 doctorial theses and acted as co-supervisor for two neurologists.

Dr. Lennernäs has obtained several national and international research grants. He has received the Glaxo Welcome Achievement Award (1997), the Annual Award from the Industrial Pharmacy Section (1998) from the Fédération Internationale Pharmaceutique (FIP), and a Honourable Mentions at EURAND AWARD (2000). He has also been elected as AAPS Fellow (2004) and received the AAPS Meritorious Manuscript Award (2004) as well as the New Safe Medicine Faster Award (2008) and the innovation award “Hjärnäpplet” (2017). He is currently the managing entity for an EU-grant from IMI (Innovative Medicine Initiative) of 24.5 MEuro during 5 years (starting 1 October 2012). He received the highest research rank after an external international evaluation at Uppsala University during 2011 (Quality and Renewal 2011).

The Lennernäs research group has during more than 15 years been active in developing local drug delivery strategies for treatment of localized prostate cancer and primary liver cancer. Prototypes emerging from this research are currently evaluated in phase II clinical trials. He is the inventor of more than 15 drug delivery patents. He is one of the innovators and developers of a novel sublingual drug delivery system currently used for the treatment of various acute pain conditions (Rapinyl^®). He has also together with co-inventors initiated four other start-up companies. One company has developed a novel oral replacement therapy (Plenadren^®) for Addisons disease (approved by EMA 2011) and the second company is developing a drug product for treating localised prostate cancer (www.liddspharma.com). Another innovation was the basis for Empros Pharma in the therapeutic area of obesity and metabolic disease and a phase IIa study has been successfully completed. He is on the board at Empros Pharma AB, Nanologica AB and Canthera AB, Sweden.

Contact: Hans.Lennernas@farmbio.uu.se

Assoc. Prof. Sjögren studied pharmaceutical sciences at Uppsala University from which he graduated in 2004. He did his PhD studies at the department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, under the guidance of Professor Hans Lennernäs. The focus of his PhD studies was on hepatic disposition of drugs and the implication for pharmacokinetic assessments and the benefits of applying mechanistic data analysis. Investigations were carried out utilizing cell fractions (enzyme kinetics), primary hepatocytes (cell disposition) and a pre-clinical animal model (physiologically based pharmacokinetic [PBPK] modelling) to adopt a step wise approach for estimation and prediction of hepatic drug disposition in vivo.

After defending his doctoral thesis in 2010 he continued as post-doc at AstraZeneca evaluating and improving the in silico intestinal absorption model GI-Sim. Since 2011 he holds a position as a researcher at the Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, also acting as co-supervisor of PhD students and teaching in undergraduate programmes. Dr. Sjögren was appointed Associate Professor in Biopharmaceutics in 2016 as an acknowledgment of his scientific and pedagogical excellence.

His current position involves planning, execution and analysis of in vitro, pre-clinical and clinical studies in combination with in silico modelling and simulation for the purpose of increasing fundamental knowledge in processes relevant for biopharmaceutical assessments. The experiences of holistic evaluations, combining information on different bio-levels and pharmaceutical characteristics has in several projects been essential for accomplishment of in vivo relevant assessments of pharmaceutical formulation performance and pharmacokinetics. While his merits include publications in a broad scientific range the current research is mainly conducted within the fields of biopharmaceutics, gastrointestinal drug absorption, pharmaceutical formulations, drug delivery, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics and the application of mechanistic modelling and simulation, e.g., PBPK and physiologically based biopharmaceutic (PBBP) models.

Contact: Erik.Sjogren@farmbio.uu.se

Pharmacist with a Master’s degree from Uppsala University. Studying biopharmaceutical aspects of intestinal drug absorption. Main focuses are on regional differences and the effect of absorption enhancing pharmaceutical excipients.

Contact: David.Dahlgren@farmbio.uu.se  

Has a Master of Science in Pharmacy and works with understanding drug absorption in the lungs. The focus is on drug dissolution, permeability and tissue retention and used methods includes ex vivo and in silico models.

Contact: Johanna.Eriksson@farmbio.uu.se 

Chemist (MChem) with a degree from York (UK) with experiences as a graduate at AstraZeneca. Now researching targeted nanoparticles, in-vitro methods and liver cancer.

Contact: Oliver.Degerstedt@farmbio.uu.se 

Master of Science in Engineering Nanoscience with a research focus on the development of novel nano based formulations for the treatment of liver cancer. Works mostly with lipid based drug delivery systems and cell models.

Contact: Fredrik.Kullenberg@farmbio.uu.se 

Master of Science in Biomedicine, focusing on drug absorption in the small intestine with experience at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Now researching prospective use of gut hormones in gastrointestinal disorders.

Contact: Karsten.Peters@farmbio.uu.se 

Master of Pharmaceutical Science with a research focus on the development of mechanistic based pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamics (PBPK-PD) models for drug-drug interaction (DDI) predictions and human translation of new modalities, at Astrazeneca.

Contact: Luna.PrietoGarcia@farmbio.uu.se