ABOUT
QUALITY MEDICATION CARE
ABOUT OUR TEAM
Quality Assurance and Accreditation
Our staff follow ISO 17025 practices.
Our laboratories are Australian PC2 standard class laboratories and are suitable for clinical samples,
biohazardous samples.
We employ dedicated quality assurance personnel separate from the analytical and laboratory team.
Your results are independently verified and checked by experienced QA professionals who are independent from the staff undertaking analysis.
Objectives
Quality Medication Care is committed to provide excellence, innovation and timeliness in the areas of need and opportunity in pharmacology and toxicology through contract R&D, product development and evaluation and provision of specialised services.
A key component in meeting these objectives is the extensive and creative use of an evidence based mechanistic understanding of core concepts that may facilitate the development of new treatments and delivery systems for disease and problematic health related conditions and including consumer, occupational and environmental health.
A second component is providing services in QMC’s specialised area of expertise to meet unmet client needs, be they in product R&D; the testing and evaluation of products/actives/toxins; or in providing cutting edge advice to assist in regulatory approval.
Mission and values
Quality Medication Care Pty Ltd (QMC) has as a key mission to undertake activities that make a real difference to the community.
Two outcomes being strived for are excellence through quality-by-design evidence-based research & development (R&D) and the nurturing of jobs that support industry, academia and government agencies.
QMC’s values are integrity, trust, loyalty, quality, evidence base, excellence, innovation to make a difference, attention to detail and timeliness.
QMC’s current portfolio
1. Provision of specialised GC-MS and LCMSMS analyses of drugs and poisons in patients after exposure to various products, including by inadvertent exposure and overdosing; and associated pharmacokinetic, pharmacology and toxicology advice on drugs and poisons;
2. Evaluation and assistance in the development and testing of products for clients, including
a. In vitro, ex vivo and in vivo animal and human skin permeation studies
b. Efficacy of product/drugs or analytes including nanoparticles by any route of delivery
c. HPLC and/or LCMSMS analysis of drug or compound levels in biological matrix or environmental samples
d. Stability testing of formulations/products
e. Pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and toxicokinetic studies
f. Development of specific animal models to facilitate testing of compounds; and
3. Creating new products to meet a market need. This includes reformulation of existing drug/actives without and with devices to create new evidence-based products.
OUR Expertise and workplace
PROFESSIONALS IN QUEensLanD AND South Australia
QMC now has staff with expertise in product development, analysis, pharmacokinetics, toxicology, animal studies and patient studies with staff based in Adelaide at the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational for Health Research (BHI) in association with the University of South Australia (UniSA) and in Brisbane at the University of Queensland (UQ) Frazer Institute within the Translational Research Institute.
It uses two registered business names in relation to its activities: Inter Derm and QMC Clinical Pharmacy Services.
Product
Development
Analysis
Pharmacokinetics
Toxicology
Animal
Studies
Patient
Studies
OUR SPECIALTIES
QMC is a proprietary limited company that forms part of the Roberts’ family trust with Professor Michael Roberts holding the position of Executive Director. It was established in 1995 as an adjunct to Professor Roberts’s academic activities after an approach from the Terry White Pharmacy group and supported by his UQ Executive Dean. They asked Professor Roberts to partner them in translating into practice his team’s work on evidence based improved patient outcomes. Concurrently, Interderm Pty Ltd was set up to undertake external evaluation of dermatological and cosmetic products for industry. Their initial activities were undertaken at UQ through the Therapeutics Research Centre (TRC) hub at the University of Queensland and formalised by Letters of Agreement between UQ, QMC Pty Ltd and Interderm Pty Ltd in 2001.
In 2009, Professor Roberts took up a substantive appointment at the University of South Australia (UniSA) and established a QMC-UniSA agreement with them and the BHI in Woodville South in South Australia that facilitated QMC providing a range of contract research, product evaluation and research & development activities at BHI. The companies QMC and Interderm have now been merged retaining QMC as the corporate entity name and incorporating Inter Derm as a business name.
More recently, associated with his retirement from UQ to become an Emeritus Professor at the end of 2020 and retirement from UniSA to become an Adjunct Professor at the end of 2021, Professor Roberts has focussed on developing innovative products.
In 2014, Dr Lorraine Mackenzie was appointed to the position of Centre Manager for the Therapeutics Research Centre at UniSA 1.0 FTE and subsequently in 2018 to the position of General Manager of QMC 0.8 FTE maintaining a 0.2 FTE at UniSA. As General Manager, she is responsible for managing all aspects of the business to ensure quality and timely delivery of results and including the managerial oversight of the product and delivery system developmental research. At the beginning of 2021 Dr Mackenzie was promoted to Associate Professor for her 0.2 FTE appointment by UniSA.
OUR TEAM
QMC leadership team
Professor Michael Roberts, Chairperson of QMC is a former longstanding NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow (1994 to 2021), is an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland and Adjunct Professor of Therapeutics & Pharmaceutical Science at the University of South Australia.
He is a registered pharmacist with the following degrees: BPharm (Adel), MSc (Syd), PhD (Syd), DSc (Syd), MBA (Qld) and Dip Tert. Ed (UNE). He was elected as Fellow of the Australian Institute of Pharmacy Management (FAIPM) in 1987 and a Fellow of the Australian College of Pharmacy (FACP) in 2007 for his contribution to the pharmacy profession. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAAHMS) in March 2015. Michael has received many awards, with his most recent being named as a Clarivate Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Pharmacology and Toxicology for both 2021 and 2022.
He was also named in 2022 as a co-recipient of a Translational Research Institute Top 10 Translational Achievements of the last 10 years (UQ) for he and his team’s work with the “U.S. FDA on improving the accessibility to affordable topical medications by revolutionizing the way generic products are regulated.”
Associate Professor Lorraine Mackenzie, General Manager QMC is a former NHMRC Peter Doherty Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide (2003-2010), with a BSc (Flinders) with majors in microbiology, molecular biology and genetics and a PhD from Flinders University of South Australia.
She was awarded the Ahrens Award for Outstanding Achievement by a young Heart Foundation Researcher by the Heart Foundation before moving to industry in 2010 appointed as Vice President for Science and Research and subsequently to Head Australia Asia Pacific for a commercial pre-clinical testing research organisation, vivoPharm. She joined the Australian Water Quality Centre, SA Water as Manager of Microbiology Services before being appointed as Centre Manager, Therapeutics Research Centre, UniSA and Operations Manager Translational Australian Clinical Toxicology Centre.
She was promoted to the position of General Manager of QMC in 2018 and, in 2021, promoted to Associate Research Professor at UniSA.
Dr. Faye Whan, Senior Analyst is the QMC LCMS specialist with a PhD from the University of Adelaide. She majored in analytical and environmental chemistry with a specialty in environmental toxin research.
She was awarded the Water Quality Research Australia scholarship grant to do research in conjunction with the toxicology research group of SA Water into novel cyanobacterial toxin production. She moved into industry in 2018 where she was a senior laboratory analyst in the Food & Beverage industry for Kingston Estate Wines, one of the largest wine producers and exporters in South Australia.
She was appointed to QMC as LCMS Analyst and UniSA as Research and Technical Officer in 2021.
