Dr Adeniyi Olagunju BPharm MRes PhD FHEA

Personal Statement

Dr Adeniyi Olagunju is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and a member of the Centre of Excellence for Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) where ongoing cutting-edge innovative research will transform drug delivery strategies for major disease burdens. He leads the Perinatal Pharmacology Group within CELT. The perinatal period represents a critical developmental window during which the health and wellbeing of future generations is laid down. Research within the Perinatal Pharmacology Group is focused on broadening our understanding of drug safety and efficacy during pregnancy and lactation. Working across three domains (human-relevant in vitro modelling, in silico modelling and clinical research), our goal is to generate actionable knowledge that will facilitate early recommendations for safe use of medicines during the perinatal period. In previous projects we elucidated the impact of maternal adaptations, host genetics and/or drug-drug interactions on drug exposure during pregnancy and lactation.

Dr Olagunju’s vision for his research programme is to transform the assessment of drug safety during human pregnancy by developing a platform that will generate human pregnancy-relevant safety information early in drug development. This will facilitate decisions about situations where pregnant women can be safely included in early-phase clinical trials, enabling evidence-based, pregnancy-specific recommendations for potentially life-saving therapeutics. Ongoing work within the group is primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The group is also leading new open access initiatives, including:
(1) the Long-acting Therapeutics Patents and Licences (LAPaL) platform which tracks the clinical development, regulatory approval status and patents landscape of long-acting therapeutics globally. It is a collaboration with Medicines Patent Pool and the Long-acting Extended Release Antiretroviral Research Resource programme (LEAP).
(2) the Pharmacokinetic Archive (PKRxiv), a managed open access database and data visualization platform for post-print collaborative sharing of individual-level pharmacokinetic data and associated covariates. Its early version is focused on pregnancy and postpartum pharmacokinetic data. Click here to learn more about the PKRxiv.