APS Announces PharmSci 2026 Award Lecture Winners
13 July 2026
The APS is pleased to announce the PharmSci 2026 Award Lecture Winners. We received a large number of applications and would like to thank all the applicants for their support. We are pleased to announce the winners as follows:
Bruno C. Hancock, PhD.
Vice President, Aleurites LLC
Bruno C. Hancock is a pharmaceutical industry consultant and the former head of materials science at Pfizer Inc. He holds a BPharm from the University of Bath, UK and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of Bradford, UK. Before working as a consultant, he held a post-doctoral research appointment at the University of Wisconsin and worked at ICI Pharmaceuticals (now Astra Zeneca), Merck Frosst & Co. and Pfizer Inc. He has worked in the areas of formulation development (focused on spray dried dispersions), powder technology, pharmaceutical materials science, drug product process development & technology transfer, and computational drug product design. Bruno has published over one-hundred-and-thirty full research papers and several patents. He has served as an advisor to the United States Pharmacopoeia on the use and testing of pharmaceutical materials since 1995 and was the recipient of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain Science Medal in 2000 for his contributions to pharmaceutical research. He was elected to Fellow status in the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in 2004. He has been an Editor for the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences since 2014, and he currently serves as a co-editor for the Handbook of Pharmaceutical Excipients.
Be sure to see Bruno’s presentation on “Delivering the Future: How Novel Excipients Are Changing What Medicines Can Do” at PharmSci 2026.
APS Emerging Scientist Award
Juan Luis Paris
Principal Investigator, IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND. Allergy Unit, Regional University Hospital of Málaga, Spain
Juan Luis Paris is a Principal Investigator at IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND in Málaga (Spain), where he leads an independent research line on nanomedicine for diagnostics and therapy, with a particular focus on allergic and immune-related diseases. He obtained his PhD in Pharmacy from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2017 and has since developed an international and interdisciplinary research profile through positions at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, Queen’s University Belfast, and research stays at the University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School. His multidisciplinary training in materials science, pharmaceutical technology, physical chemistry, stem cell biology, acoustic engineering and immunology has enabled him to develop innovative solutions that bridge fundamental science with translational medicine. He has authored 43 peer-reviewed publications, including work in leading journals such as Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, ACS Nano, and Allergy, with over 2,500 citations and an h-index of 22. He has secured competitive funding as principal investigator exceeding €2.5 million, including a recent ERC Starting Grant, and currently leads a multidisciplinary team of postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.
Be sure to see Juan Luis’s presentation on “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Future Medicines Through Nanotechnology” at PharmSci 2026.
APS Innovative Science Award
Ali Nokhodchi
Director of Materials Characterizations
(Lupin Research Inc., Coral Springs, Florida, USA) and Emeritus Professor (University of Sussex, UK)
Ali Nokhodchi is a highly accomplished pharmaceutical scientist with an extensive career spanning academia and industry. He earned his pharmacy degree in 1989 and completed his PhD in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology at Liverpool John Moores University, UK, in 1996. He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex, UK, and currently serves as Director of Material Characterization at Lupin Research Center, Florida, USA.
Nokhodchi’s research interests encompass formulation science, particle engineering of excipients and active pharmaceutical ingredients for pulmonary and oral drug delivery, dissolution enhancement, 3D printing, nanomedicine and controlled-release formulations. He has authored more than 450 peer-reviewed research articles, 10 book chapters, and a book. As of July 2026, Professor Nokhodchi has an H-index of 80, with his publications receiving over 21,000 citations. He serves as Associate Editor for several leading pharmaceutical journals and is a member of the editorial boards of more than ten international journals in the pharmaceutical sciences.
He is the inventor of four patents in pharmaceutical formulation technologies, including the innovative Liqui-Pellet® technology. Throughout his distinguished career, he has supervised 20 PhD students and more than 100 MPharm, MSc, and PharmD research projects.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to pharmaceutical sciences, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Scientists (UK) in 2018. He also received the High Impact Award at the AAPS 360 Conference held in Orlando, Florida, USA, in 2023. Since 2016, he has consistently been recognized among the world’s top 1% of scientists in the field of Pharmacy and Pharmacology by Clarivate’s Essential Science Indicators.
Be sure to see Ali’s presentation on “Liqui-pellet technology as the next-generation oral delivery platform” at PharmSci 2026.
