Pharmaceutics mainly deals with the development, production and evaluation of pharmaceutical dosage forms. For this, apart from Pharmaceutics certain other disciplines like Physical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Engineering are also integrated. Knowledge of Physical Pharmacy facilitate the preformulation task while during formulation and production, the knowledge of pharmaceutics becomes criticall Pharmaceutical Engineering helps largely in tackling industrial scale production.

Other allied subjects which are important and are associated with the department are Dispensing Pharmacy, Microbiology, Hospital Pharmacy and Cosmeticology.

Cosmeticology involves development and preparation of cosmetics on the similar lines as for pharmaceuticals. This generally involves exotic topicals without the presence of typical therapeutic agents.

The subject of Dispensing Pharmacy deals with an area where therapy is provided to the patient by the pharmacist in a customized manner. The dispensing process involves a great deal of patient care. The formulation prepared are specific to the patient as per the physicians prescription. As they are consumed within a short span of time, they are normally not required to have extended shelf life. Hospital pharmacy deals with patients in similar manner but at a larger scale. Knowledge of microbiology is essential for designing and development of microbe free sterile products like injectables and ophthalmics and for their evaluation.

The department has 4 UG labs, one pilot plant and one post-graduate laboratory. The UG labs include Pharmaceutics-I, Pharmaceutics-II, Microbiology and Physical Pharmacy. Pharmaceutics Lab-I involves conduction of U.G. practicals in the subject of Dispensing, Cosmeticology and Pharmaceutics. Lab-II is used for Pharmaceutics. The labs have certain GMP standards implemented including concealed water and sewage lines, sunken basin, laminated table tops, microscope lights, balance covers and provision of adequate lockers. There is an independent preparation area in each la. In addition Lab-I has attached Quality Control room. Many of these features have been subsequently copied and followed up by other colleges. Final Year Pharmaceutics practical including aseptic handling i.e. dealing with sterile operations are conducted in Lab-II. This lab has one of the best designed sterile area with wash and change areas, air locks, HEPA filters and well designed service lines. Sterility and air handling are of high quality. Conception and functioning of the Pilot plant attached to the dept is quite unique in nature and designed following modular concept. GMP compliance viz. Air change, ventilation, cleanliness (class 10,000), anti insect / anti infest arrangements and the essential utility services (electricity, water, sewage, compressed air and vacuum) are well taken care of. Facilities generated are approximately worth about Rs.2 ½ crores. The Pilot Plant is unique in nature and till recently was considered to be the only one of its kind in the country. Many institutes still visit this facility and strive to construct a similar pilot plant. The pilot plant is mainly helpful for standardization and optimization of unit operations and scale up process technologies of a wide range of dosage forms, conduction of PG research projects and handling various formulation developmental work. The pilot plant has helped to strengthen industry participation with our institute in a big way. Furthermore, the pilot plant also has a separate packaging development section having strip, blister and pouch packaging facilities.

The pilot plant has many equipments and machines to deal with dosage development including liquids (monophasic, polyphasic), semisolids (ointments, creams, gels & suppositories), solids (powder, capsules, tablets), coating (pan & air suspension) drying (FBD, microwave, spray & freeze drying), size reduction (all types of mills), micro fluidisation and pelletization. KMKCP was the first to introduce the Erweka system. It is composed of 2 mother motors (drives) to which a large range of facilities can be attached dealing with specific dosage form requirements like liquids, semisolids, coating etc. In addition to this the pilot facility also includes a modern automatic fermenter.

Faculty :

The department is headed by Dr. S.S.Poddar. His team includes Dr. Jessy Shaji, Dr. Bala Prabhakar, Mrs. V.S. Borkar, Dr. Rita Lala, Dr. Nailini Kurup, Mrs. Uma Mulimani, Mrs. Shilpa Bhilegaonkar. This potential team is supported by able lab assistants and lab attendants.

P.G. Teaching programme

The college was established in June 1971 at Ulhasnagar. Teaching and research culture was inculcated simultaneously in Pharmaceutics Dept. as early as in 1971 with the initation of research activities by Dr. J. K. Lalla, Mr. B.N Pandya & Mr. N.N.Lohia.

In the beginning, as per Poona University syllabus, 6 months research project at Final Year B.Pharm Sci. level was in the curriculum. Three batches of students got graduated following this syllabus. Each batch of such students in the department was of 15 in number. Thus 45 desertations in 3 batches were produced.

M.Pharm programme (by research) was recognized by Bombay University and started in Principal K.M.Kundnani College of Pharmacy at Ulhasnagar in 1978 and continued till 1984. Bombay University discontinued the M.Pharm (by research) and revised the M.Pharm course with the introduction of partly by research and partly by papers in 1984-85. Till date a total number of 108 M.Pharm post graduates have been produced. The thesis research works mainly focused on the various types of novel dosage forms developed by the researchers under the able guidance of Dr. J. K. Lalla, Dr. U. B. Hadkar, Dr. S. S. Bhalerao, Dr. S. S. Poddar and Dr. Jessy Shaji. The areas of research work included were delivery systems covering, oral, injectable, transdermal, ophthalmic, nasal, bronchial, buccal, rectal, vaginal etc.

The department has the rare distinction of getting recognized for the conduction of doctoral programme and to enroll 8 students way back in 1980-81. Through the post-graduate and doctoral programme not less than 100 research papers have been published in national & international journals. From 1980 onwards good number of research papers were presented from the department i.e. 10-12 at every Indian Pharmaceutical Congress (IPC). The paper presentations have gone up by leaps and bounds and today paper presentation contribution from Dr. S. S. Poddar alone has gone upto 30 scientific papers annually. Dr. S. S. Poddar also has the unique distinction of inculcating & nurturing the culture of research at final year B.Pharm level. Through good motivation, intense moulding and intelligent management of time & priority, excellent results have been achieved. Many of the research work have been presented at oral and poster sessions of the annual IPC and some of them have been awarded as “Best Papers”.

Research thrust area – Industry Participation

Development of modified release pharmaceuticals to meet better patient compliance, improved bioavailability, minimized side effects have always been the thrust area of the department.

Various dosage form developed include Oral, transdermal, transmucosal and parenteral. Over the time, formulation scientists of the department have acquired adequate expertise and skills to develop any kinds of modern formulations of drugs which are in demand and are need of the day. These developments are largely based on the concepts dosage design, biopharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics and driven by pharmacodynamic activities and therapeutic needs. With the impetus for the development of newer delivery systems, the faculty and research scientists have been able to file patents on different formulations viz. transdermal delivery, taste masking, multi layered tablets, thermal sintering and novel natural SR excipients. Some of these patents have been granted.

Due to the presence of intellectual bank, expertise and infrastructural facility in the college, the industry has been attracted to KMKCP specially in the area of industrial pharmacy and drug development programmes.

Dr. J. K. Lalla & Dr. S. S. Poddar have been delivering guest lectures to different Pharmaceutial companies like Macleoid, SPARC, Alkem and many more.

Many formulations viz. Diclofenac Sustained Release (SR) tablets, Ketorolac tromethamine tablets, Diltiazem SR tablets, Amitryptiline transdermal patch, Nifedipine SR Tablets, Diclofenac ammonium gel and Cisapride tablets were developed as per industry requirement and transferred successfully to the respective companies.

Industrial linkages include Hindustan antibiotics Ltd, Vasundhara Rasayana Ltd., Pious Pharma, Emcure Labs Ltd. , Chemopharma Labs Ltd., Albert David Ltd, Novartis, Vedic Life Sciences, Bakularomatics etc., and the list is growing.