Establishing new in vivo lab

It has been an interesting last couple of months at Admescope. Even though summer is often considered to be the quiet period in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe, we were busy at generating validation data for our new in vivo lab, which was officially opened in September.

It’s time to look back to the development that led us to the establishment of our new in vivo facilities. Launching the facilities was our answer to customer requests. Having in vivo lab and bioanalytical lab “under one roof” does not only enable faster turnaround times, but also enables us to manage the whole process. The process began roughly a year ago as I joined Admescope after working the last 8 years in Melbourne, Australia. Initially I moved there for a post doc, but then worked also in a small pre-clinical contract research company where my work consists of coordinating, designing and conducting pharmacokinetic in vivo, in vitro and in silico experiments.

The year preparing us for the launch of in vivo facilities has been an interesting ride. The process began by applying the necessary permits including an ethics approval. In vivo studies are strictly regulated in Finland, and governed by EU legislation, and the process of applying permission is quite a process. After putting a massive number of hours in, we managed to get the official approval and a green light was shown for us to go forward. After the approval you know you’re in the right track and the process does get a bit easier, but when you see just an empty laboratory it feels like you haven’t gone too far from square one. That is when your experience comes to play and you need to think what is needed for a functional environment. At the same time it is a great opportunity that only few people can experience, but at the same time it seems as an enormous task. When you are working in a well-equipped laboratory you don’t necessarily pay an attention to huge amount of tools and consumables you are using on everyday basis. After few imaginary experiments we had a perfect shopping list.

After months of work the playground was ready for the very first pharmacokinetic assay. It was quite a big day for us and became even better after seeing the results. We did it! What a journey, I appreciate this experience.

Written by Janne Mannila