
Dr Hamid Merchant
Head of Department for Bioscience
Head of Department
Pharmaceutical Formulations and Product Development
Department of Bioscience , School Of Health, Sport And Bioscience
Dr Merchant is the Head of Department for Bioscience at the University of East London. He is a pharmaceutical scientist with experience in drug delivery and product development in industry and academia.
Before joining UEL, Hamid worked for the University of Huddersfield (2013-2023), University College London (2011-2013), and Abbott Laboratories Ltd (2002-2007), where he had various leadership roles.
Qualifications
- BPharm
- MPharm
- PGCHE
- PhD
Areas Of Interest
Formulation design, biopharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, bioavailability, bioequivalence, vaccines, medicine quality.
OVERVIEW
Dr Merchant is a pharmaceutical scientist with over 20 years experience in research and development both in industry and academia.
Hamid is the founding editor of the British Journal of Pharmacy, an open science initiative from the University Press, and sits on editorial boards for further two peer-reviewed international scientific journals.
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE), a Scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (SRPharmS), a Fellow of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (APS), and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH). Hamid also holds honorary adjunct professorships at the Health Services Academy, Government of Pakistan and the Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi.
CURRENT RESEARCH
Hamid's research expertise includes novel formulation design, biopharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, bioavailability, and bioequivalence. He has a particular interest in drug delivery research at the interface of gastroenterology and publishes in various aspects of oral delivery.
Hamid has published extensively (Scopus h-index 24 with over 2000 citations), have a patent granted in GB, EU and the US and two further patents under the PCT stage of prosecution.
COVID-19: the novel coronavirus disease
Dr Merchant has proposed an early intervention therapeutic strategy for COVID-19 to prevent developing a severe disease as an alternative approach to control the pandemic.
Dr Merchant has also been the part of the evidence synthesis group for better use of medicines during COVID-19 and has contributed significantly by publishing in peer-reviewed journals, contributing to the media, and range of public education campaigns, both in English and Urdu languages. A few examples of his COVID-19 contributions include: predicting the mortality benefits of steroids early in the pandemic, the benefits of using inhalable corticosteroids in asthma and COPD patients amid pandemic, a critical review of alcohol based hand sanitisers on the market and formulation approaches to respond to the increasing demand, an early warning in the pandemic against antimalarials as cures for coronavirus, and the review of COVID-19 cases, associated hospitalisation, and mortality.
Formulation development
The advancements in materials sciences and improved understanding of the human gastrointestinal (GI) environment are leading to intelligent design of formulations. The rationale design and selection of delivery technologies improves the performance of orally administered drugs, for example, by improving drug solubility, flux or by delivering it to the specific gastrointestinal regions. His research in formulation sciences offers novel and customised solutions for immediate and delayed release formulations; and drug targeting in GI tract, such as delivery to the colon.
Dissolution and permeation of drugs
Drug dissolution in gastrointestinal fluid and its permeation through the gastrointestinal mucosa is a key consideration for its absorption. Our research continues to explore and develop various in-vitro technologies to provide a reasonable estimation of absorption and help selecting a lead formulation for clinical evaluation. One of his innovative strategies is the exploitation of physiological bicarbonate buffers for dissolution testing. This led to the development of an Auto pH System™ – a robust instrumentation and dynamic dissolution media employing physiological bicarbonate buffers simulating the aboral changes in gastrointestinal pH while dosage form transits down the gut after emptying from stomach (PCT/GB2013/051145).
The system exploits the physiological equilibrium of bicarbonate/carbonic acids to control and manipulate the pH and offers a robust automatic pH control without using conventional nonphysiological acid/base titration techniques. The novel system has numerous applications in drug delivery and has been employed to assess dissolution and drug release from various delivery systems, such as: dissolution screening of drugs and its salt forms, evaluation of gastro-resistant formulations, inter-individual variability of GI pH and transit and consequences on drug release, evaluation of delayed-release formulations for colonic targeting, evaluation of sustained-/controlled-release formulations.
Preclinical models in drug delivery
Pre-clinical testing is paramount for the improved understanding of the behaviour of orally administered drugs. Various animal models are used with the aim to mimic as closely as possible the conditions of the human gastrointestinal tract. The characteristics of the gastrointestinal milieu have a significant influence on orally administered drugs. Therefore, rational selection of animal models for a specific delivery technology is a key to successful translation of preclinical observations to clinic.
We have investigated the gastrointestinal milieu of various animal models, such as mice, rat, guinea pig, rabbit and pig, and their effects on drug solubility and absorption. We have also explored the effects of ageing in gastrointestinal environment of rat in relation to drug delivery. For a complete list of peer-reviewed publications, please refer to the publications section.
EXTERNAL ROLES
- Deputy Editor in Chief, British Journal of Pharmacy
- Biopharmaceutics Focus Group, Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Great Britain
- IETP Advisory Group, General Pharmaceutical Council, UK
- Special Interest Group, Faculty of Public Health, UK
- Honorary Professor, Health Services Academy, Ministry of Health, Pakistan
- Honorary Professor, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi
Publications
Browse past publications by year.
Full publications list
Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications
- A real-world exploration into clinical outcomes of direct oral anticoagulant therapy in people with chronic kidney disease: a large hospital-based study Journal of Nephrology. In Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40620-024-01930-x
- Repurposing rapid diagnostic tests to detect falsified vaccines in supply chains Vaccine. 42 (7), pp. 1506-1511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.01.019
- Intragastric balloons for obesity: critical review of device design, efficacy, tolerability, and unmet clinical needs Expert Review of Medical Devices. 21 (1-2), pp. 37-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/17434440.2023.2289691