The French Medicinal Chemistry Society (Société de Chimie Thérapeutique – SCT) is pleased to invite you to Avignon on July 1-3, 2015, for the 51st edition of the International Conference on Medicinal Chemistry (RICT 2015).

The scientific programme, which will include over 25 plenary lectures by internationally well-known scientists, will focus on “Drug Discovery and Selection – Understanding Targets and Mechanisms“.

RICT 2015 is expected to gather 550-600 scientists from around the world, with a majority of scientists coming from Europe.

Avignon, located in south-eastern France on the Rhone River, is a beautifully preserved medieval town surrounded by the original fortified city walls. The central historical part of the city, including the Palace of the Popes, the Saint-Benezet bridge, and the fortification walls that surround the city, is now a protected UNESCO heritage site.

The climax of Avignon’s season comes with the Avignon Theater Festival, when for three weeks the city dominates France’s cultural life. Beginning in the second week of July, the emphasis of this festival is theatre in its different guises, turning the city into one big stage. Participants of the RICT Symposium could extend their stay in Avignon to discover this biggest and highly popular theatre festival in the world!

The city of Avignon is also popular for its ease of access, and it is the ideal home base for exploring south of France. Visitors can zip to Nice, Marseille or Paris in a mere three or four hour. It is near many wonderful destinations, including Arles, Nîmes, Aix-en-Provence and Orange. If you plan to visit both the Languedoc and Provence, Avignon makes an ideal home base.

The RICT organisers warmly invite you to attend the RICT Symposium in July 2015, and to take your time to discover Avignon – be it before, during or after the conference. Cause let there be no doubt: Avignon is the perfect destination where business can be easily combined with pleasure!

http://www.rict2015.org/

The use of biophysical techniques in drug discovery is rapidly increasing, and many pharmaceutical companies have set up in-house biophysical platforms to speed up the target-to-candidate process and improve the quality of small-molecule therapeutics through a better understanding of their interactions with their targets.

However, biophysics for drug discovery had not yet been the subject of a dedicated conference: most of the time, it is the topic of a specialised session within drug discovery conferences, and on the other hand biophysical meetings are often very academy-oriented and rarely extend their scope to drug discovery aspects.

Aiming at filling this gap, the first NovAliX Conference ‘Biophysics in Drug Discovery’, which was held in October 2013 in Strasbourg, France, was a real success, attracting more than 160 people from 20 countries.

Bringing together the medchem and biophysics communities, the conference, with a 2/1 ratio of participants from industry / academia, was a dense and rich event with lively discussions after presentations, around the posters and during the round table.

The second edition of the conference intends to further develop the synergy between biophysics and medicinal chemistry, which is key to deliver better drugs on a shorter timeline. The following topics will be discussed during the conference:

The XVI conference of this series will gather chemists from over the world, involved in the chemistry of heterocycles. The heterocycles in this case will generally be submitted to biological tests as well in medicine as in agriculture. The scientific programme will include plenary and invited lectures by top chemists in the field and will be completed by oral communications and poster presentations. The conference is intended to synthetic chemists interested in heterocycles and biological activities.

Confirmed speakers

• Prof. Matthias BELLER (UNIVERSITY OF ROSTOCK, Rostock, Germany)
• Prof. Ahcene BOUMENDJEL (UNIVERSITÉ JOSEPH FOURIER, Grenoble, France)
• Prof. Michael GREANEY (THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, Manchester, United Kingdom)
• Dr Brian JOHNS (GSK, Durham, United States)
• Mrs Esther LETE (UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAÍS VASCO, Bilbao, Spain)
• Prof. Thomas LINDEL (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF BRAUNSCHWEIG, Braunschweig, Germany)
• Prof. Antonello MAI (UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA, Roma, Italy)
• Dr Harald WALTER (SYNGENTA CROP PROTECTION MÜNCHWILEN, Stein, Switzerland)

http://www.bioheterocycles2015.eu/

A large number of medicines used in paediactric care have not been tested on children and are therefore used off lable or unlicensed. This absence of suitable authorised medicinal products to treat conditions in children is an issue that has been of concern for some time, and one that is increasingly coming to the fore.

Returning for its ninth year as an industry leading event, SMI are proud to present the 9th annual Paediatric Clinical Trials Conference, 25th – 26th March 2015, London. This event will look at the paediatric therapeutic developments, directives and procedures which have been put in place to protect children taking part in clinical trials.

A series of interactive conference sessions, roundtables and panel discussion facilitated by leading industry experts will provide executives with useful tools and best practices to effectively submit a PIP that meets FDA and EMA regulations and improve skills and understanding of the responsibilities of conducting clinical research in the paediatric population.

Key topics include:

• Guidelines on the Paediactric Investigation Plan (PIP) – strategies to overcome any challenges
• Formulating meaningful statistics with a limited patient population
• Site selection and feasibility- identifying appropriate clinical trial sites
• Optimizing patient retention strategies for successful trial development

http://www.smi-online.co.uk/pharmaceuticals/uk/conference/paediatric-clinical-trials

As controlled release drug delivery systems continue to play an important role among the emerging areas of research in the treatment of diseases, this event will focus on specific topics looking at advances made in the field and how to overcome the challenges involved when developing controlled release formulations.

Returning for its twelfth year and following on from the major success of previous events, SMi are proud to present the 12th annual Controlled Release Conference, 20th – 21st April 2015, London, UK.

Through a series of interactive presentations and panel discussions, the goal of this major networking event is to spotlight principles and illustrative examples facilitating access to the findings of industry innovators on current activities and trends. Ultimately serving as a valuable resource for capturing the ‘big picture’ of the latest research and developments, this is a must attend event!

Key topics include:

• Ocular treatment – the challenge of systemic long term delivery in the eye
• Delivery of therapeutic antibodies… overcoming the technical challenges to add value to the patient whilst ensuring efficacy and stability of the drug
• Use of solid dispersions to increase the solubility of drugs in terms of controlled release and assimilation
• New technology for old drugs! …. Repurposing older drugs for a new generation And much more!

http://www.smi-online.co.uk/pharmaceuticals/uk/conference/controlled-release