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Group photo from SSM6, held at the Barcelona Science Park - © Hector Fuentes.
 18.04.2017

Barcelona Science Park will host 9th edition of Summer School on Medicines

The 9th Summer School on Medicines (SSM9) will once again be held at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), from 2 to 7July. SSM is one of the most innovative and results-oriented training initiatives offered internationally in the pharmaceutical sector. The SSM9 program –organized by PCB and Biocat in collaboration with the University of Barcelona, University of Montréal, Université Paul Sabatier and CNRS-INSERM-CRCT– will deal with the drug discovery and development process, covering the whole value chain from idea to market, including topics like funding, public-private partnerships and open innovation.

 

Discovering a new drug is a complex process that involves a wide range of highly specialized professionals in public institutions and industry, from biologists and chemists to clinicians, economists and regulatory affairs specialists. Since 2009, the Summer School of Medicines (SSM) has brought together more than 334 students, professors and companies, becoming a benchmark in training in this area.

SSM9 offers a unique 50-hour training program –based on presentations by experts, case studies, seminars, industry challenges sessions, and visits to companies and research institutes– to provide an in depth perspective of the drug discovery process at the beginning of the XXIst century, from basic research of disease pathways to the rational design of safe and effective molecules with appropriate drug-like properties.

New this year, SSM9 offers new lectures about “Beyond the pill”, the need of the pharmaceutical industry to valorize their products, with highlights in new technologies, medical devices and diagnostics, nanomedicines, precision medicine and genomics.

The program is addressed to students in life sciences (undergraduate, master, PhD and postdoc), researchers and professionals of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry and regulatory agencies, among others. The faculty is made up of experts from the biopharmaceutical industry and research bodies from several countries.

SSM lasts one week and is held in a different city each year: Montreal, Toulouse or Barcelona. The latest edition (SSM8, in 2016) was held in Toulouse (France); the 7th edition (SSM7, in 2015), in Montreal, and the 6th edition (SSM6, in 2014), at the Barcelona Science Park, with rave reviews: participants included nearly 50 students from different nationalities and more than 30 professors and experts from Canada, Switzerland, France and Spain.