Last week I attended the European Paediatric Formulation Initiative annual conference in Warsaw.

This is always a great meeting full of people working hard to ensure that age-appropriate medicines are available to children. Particular highlights from the meeting included:

An inspirational talk by Catherine Litalien about the specific needs in Canada (http://gpfccanada.com/)- she also shared a video that certainly makes the point in a very emotive way.

I was also inspired by a talk that brought the technology from food sciences (via PepsiCo) into medicines to look at novel ways to mask the taste of medicines.

Another highlight was hearing the story of the development of a new formulation of hydrocortisone to provide parents/carers and most importantly children with an easier way to take their medicines. Martin Whitaker told the story of Infacort(R) and the plans for this to be available for children and families very soon.

Some of my own work was shared via my research students. Justyna Czarnocka gave an excellent presentation on measuring the mouthfeel of films using tribology to optimise new formulations for children. Cameron Watson won a poster prize for his work describing how parents currently administer hydrocortisone to their children and the accuracy of the dosing.