Drug Innovation

Do you want to know how you can develop new drugs to combat drug-resistant microorganisms? How you can use gene or protein technologies to create therapies targeted at individual patients? How to find a way to imprint the immune system to increase tolerance? Reducing the side effects of treatment by finding new ways to deliver drugs directly onto the tumor? Or how you can update and speed up the drug regulatory process? 

Focus on diagnostics and the improvement and management of small molecule and biomolecular drugs

The Master’s programme Drug Innovation focuses on diagnostics and the improvement and management of small molecule and biomolecular drugs. Drug innovation covers many topics such as the development of new vaccines and the study of antibodies, gene therapeutics, and medical nutrition. Once developed, a new drug then needs to go through approval, which raises a whole new set of challenges, for example the establishment of new methods and criteria for evaluating the quality, efficacy, safety, and performance of the drug.

Interdisciplinary field

Drug innovation is an interdisciplinary field, which pulls together expertise from chemical, biological, physical, and medical sciences and bioinformatics. This interdisciplinarity is central to the search for new solutions to currently incurable diseases.

Tracks

Within the Master's you have a lot of freedom to tailor your own programme. You choose one of the following tracks to focus on:

• Pharmacology research
• Pharmacoepidemiology and clinical pharmacology
• Biomolecular mass spectrometry and proteomics
• Pharmaceutics
• Chemical biology and drug discovery

Why in Utrecht

• Utrecht University is host to a number of research groups conducting world-leading work in the field of drug innovation. You will be able to follow a programme of study that reflects your own personal interests through a minor research project, writing assignments, and electives.
• Freedom to design your own programme, by choosing a track, research project and electives that fit your interests best. You also select one out of 9 profiles which are designed to deepen your skills in a direction you choose. 
• Students are able to follow their Master’s programme at UMC Utrecht, one of the largest academic medical centers in the Netherlands. UMC Utrecht focuses on a number of fields external link; selected students get educated by some of the best researchers in these research areas.
• This Master's is part of the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS). The GSLS brings together the research expertise and facilities of the faculties of Science, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, in cooperation with UMC Utrecht - offering you an interdisciplinary approach.