Welcome to the website of the Pharmaceutical Solid State Research Cluster (PSSRC).

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge (UK), Copenhagen (Denmark), Düsseldorf (Germany), Ghent (Belgium), Helsinki (Finland), Lille (France) and Otago (New Zealand) have teamed up to collaborate on overcoming current limitations in the formulation of solid dosage forms. The focus of their work is on the development of novel pharmaceutical dosage forms and strategies to ensure the quality of medicines.

The research activities in the different groups cover all areas of solid dosage form development. Current areas of particular interest are solubility enhancement, stability of medicines, physical pharmacy, process understanding and process analytical technology (PAT).

Within the cluster the research activities are addressing two main areas: the development of novel analytical technologies and their use for advanced process engineering of typical unit operations during pharmaceutical manufacture.

In order to achieve this we aim at understanding the fundamental physics and chemistry behind phenomena regularly encountered during pharmaceutical manufacturing. In a second step we then develop approaches to use this knowledge for the control and optimisation of solid dosage form production.

The Pharmaceutical Solid State Research Cluster (PSSRC) was founded at the 2006 AAPS Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX.

It is linking eight research centres in the pharmaceutical sciences from the Universities of Cambridge (United Kingdom), Copenhagen (Denmark), Düsseldorf (Germany), Ghent (Belgium), Helsinki (Finland), Lille (France), Lisbon (Portugal) and Otago (New Zealand).

The cluster was formed to catalyse research activities in the solid state by sharing facilities, collaborating on specific projects and giving research students the possibility to engage with other researchers in the area.