Umair Zafar

Biography

Umair is currently a Principle Scientist at Novatis AG, Switzerland working on establishing systematic function/behavior relationship for drug substance manufacturing and characteristics to drug product processes and quality. Umair graduated with MEng honours in Chemical Engineering from the University of Leeds. In 2013 he completed his PhD entitled Flowability of Cohesive Powders at IPSE, University of Leeds, under the supervision of Prof. M.Ghadiri. This project was sponsored by the EPSRC and NNL/SL.

Umair finished a Knowledge Transfer Secondment (KTS) programme investigating segregation tendency of powder mixtures, as part of a collaborative project with Procter and Gamble in 2014. Umair then worked as a research fellow in Institute of Particle Science and Engineering at University of Leeds, investigating the grindability of powders using a non-captive bed vertical roller mill. This project is a collaboration between industry and academia focussing on new opportunities in particle design, sponsored by AMSCI. He was also the leading researcher at the University of Leeds on ‘Centre for Manufacturing Design’ in collaboration with AstraZeneca, investigating chemical and physical engineering issues involved in ensuring reliable production of pharmaceutical materials. This includes designing and developing process methods, formulation, conditions and scaling up.

Research Interests

• Particle characterisation
• Flowability of cohesive powders
• Size enlargement/agglomeration
• Powder Tribology
• Powder Tribo-electric charging
• Powder Segregation
• Material grindability/milling
• DEM/CFD simulations

Projects

• Flowability of Cohesive Powders
• Measurement of Segregation Tendency
• Grindability of Powders in a Non-Captive Bed Vertical Roller Mill