Garima Sharma

Senior Research Scientist (Analytical)

Dr Garima Sharma’s expertise is in analytical characterisation and formulation, focusing on assay development, drug solubility assessments and lymph targeting. She holds a Masters in Drug Delivery and a PhD from University College London.

During her Master's project, she developed an inhalable 3-D printed excipient-less dry powder inhaler formulation of terbutaline sulphate. Following her distinction in Masters, she managed to distinguish herself against a competitive selection process and was awarded an Overseas Research Scholarship from UCL to pursue further doctoral studies. Garima’s PhD work was also funded by (i) the Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) in Ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology and (ii) the EPSRC Centre in Emergent Macromolecular Therapies at UCL. In her PhD, she worked with a dynamic team of pharmaceutical scientists and clinician scientists to drive translational research. Her PhD focused on strategies for reducing scarring after glaucoma filtration surgery, including developing an anti-VEGF antibody subconjunctival implant to reduce inflammation at the surgery site. She also developed a novel in vitro cell-cased assay with co-culture of fibroblasts and macrophages to test anti-scarring drugs. She presented her research at several international conferences and was awarded the best PhD presentation at UCL.

Prior to working at MMIC, Garima worked with Professor Chris Porter on the Glyph platform technology at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Glyph, an innovative lymphatic-targeting platform, uses the lymphatic system's natural lipid absorption and transport processes to facilitate the oral administration of certain therapeutics by reversibly linking the drug with a dietary lipid molecule. Glyph is licensed to Seaport Therapeutics and has now progressed its lead prodrug candidate to Phase 2 clinical trials. She is a co-inventor on three patents relating to Glyph technology. In this role, she performed pharmacokinetic studies in animal models and developed biopharmaceutical assays for measuring lymph transport of various prodrug conjugates.

Her role at MMIC helps her combine her vast experience in different pharmaceutical delivery forms and integrate her understanding of the disease from a clinical perspective with the commercial aspect of developing new medicines.

Specialty areas:

• Preclinical assessment of formulations
• Bioanalytical techniques - LCMS, HPLC
• Cell culture assays
• Pharmacokinetic animal models