Joanne Reiland Wakeman, ’02 BS, ’09 PhD, visited the UI College of Pharmacy on Sept. 23.

Wakeman is a Chemistry and Manufacturing Controls (CMC) Senior Project Manager for Ardea Biosciences in San Diego, a member of the AstraZeneca Group. Around 30 students, faculty, and staff members attended Wakeman’s presentation, a seminar entitled “Formulating to a Target Profile”.

She talked about her work as the senior formulation scientist for the team that developed the drug Zurampic, which was approved for marketing in December of 2015 to treat gout. The condition, which results in an abnormally high level of uric acid in the blood, causes joint inflammation.

She talked about the challenges her team faced while working to formulate the new chemical entity (NCE) into the gout drug, from clinical development to tech transfer to the evaluation of line extension formulations. Zurampic will be on shelves with the name Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, which has acquired exclusive U.S. rights to it.

Additionally, Wakeman spoke about being a project manager for a newer agent.

Wakeman is a PhD alumna of the pharmaceutics program under Maureen Donovan, a professor in the Division of Pharmaceutics and Translational Therapeutics (PTT) and associate dean for undergraduate programs.

The seminar was sponsored by the PTT Division, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics.