IMS Health reports show the global pharmaceutical industry is a $1 trillion dollar sales business, representing more than €30 billion in exports for Ireland. Particularly, the Biopharmaceutical Industry has made in the last decade a capital investment of approximately $8 billion in new facilities in Ireland, presenting significant challenges and opportunities to advance bioprocess development. Meanwhile drugs which are worth more than $65 billion are wasted every year due to poor solubility, poor bioavailability and the lack of efficient manufacturing and formulation approaches to consistently improve their bioavailability. The manufacture of drug nanoparticles with enhanced properties (e.g. solubility, stability, bioavailability, drug specificity) provides the opportunity to bring new medicines to market. However, pharmaceutical companies have been facing considerable challenges to successfully overcome engineering and manufacturing (e.g. scale-up) hurdles associated with nano-processes. My research interests are primarily focused in the development of particle engineering technologies for small and large molecule APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients), with a particular emphasis in (bio)pharmaceutical nanomanufacturing, which includes: Pharmaceutical processing for large molecule APIs (biopharmaceuticals):-  Isolation and stabilization of biopharmaceuticals using spray drying and freeze drying- Engineering and manufacturing of biopharmaceutical nanoparticles Pharmaceutical processing for small molecule APIs (pharmaceuticals):- Continuous crystallization and drying of drug nanoparticles- Supercritical Co2 processing  for polymorphic control- (Co)Crystal engineering  

I am teaching within the Bsc Industrial Biochemistry with responsibility for:Bioprocess Engineering 1Bioprocess Engineering for BiochemistsImmunology and DNA Diagnostic Techniques

Luis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical Sciences at the University of Limerick (Ireland), Course Director in the BSc in Industrial Biochemistry programme and in the Professional Diploma in Regulatory Affairs in (Bio)Pharmaceuticals, and a Principle Investigator at the Bernal Institute. He is a Funded Investigator at SSPC (the SFI Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals) and has been awarded several grants as PI/Co-PI from various funding agencies (EU, Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland). Luis studied Biochemistry at undergraduate level before obtaining his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Following his PhD, Luis worked in the pharmaceutical industry for almost 2 years (Hovione FarmaCiência, Portugal) before joining SSPC in UL as a postdoctoral researcher and as a senior research fellow later on. Luis worked on different research projects in different institutions (academia and industry) and countries (Ireland, Portugal and Sweden) focusing his research on Particle Engineering Technologies, Continuous Nanocrystallization and (Bio)Pharmaceutical Processing. He has developed industrial expertise in Quality by Design, scale-up methods and particle engineering technologies for small and large molecule APIs with particular emphasis to spray drying of biopharmaceuticals. Luis has worked within the highest standards of quality (GLP, GMP) in the industry and participated in the development of several spray drying and nanosizing processes for oral and parenteral dosage forms.