Eight Drugs a Week Podcast

About Eight Drugs a Week Podcast

Welcome to Eight Drugs a Week, a podcast about the latest in clinical pharmacology. Your hosts are Florian Lemaitre (France) and Jana Stojanova (Australia), a pair of pharmacology nerds and Beatles fans. Join us on this journey as we catch up with colleagues around the world and discuss new developments. We'll delve right into how drug exposure relates to effects and how we can optimize drug concentrations to personalize treatment. Eight Drugs a Week is supported by the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT). The personal views of the hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the position of the Association.

Publisher

Jana Stojanova & Florian Lemaitre

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

5 Oct 2022

Latest episode

31 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

21 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   31 Aug 2026

   Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: Keeping up with New Psychoactive Substances | 20

   For this episode we will take a slightly different trip - one that takes us into the rapidly changing world of new psychoactive drugs. From synthetic cannabinoids and novel stimulants, to designer benzodiazepines and emerging psychedelics, the landscape is constantly evolving. New molecules appear faster than we can sometimes characterise them, creating major challenges for clinicians, toxicologists, laboratories and regulators. So, how can we detect these entities when we may not even know what we are looking for? And what can pharmacology and toxicology tell us about their clinical effects and their risks? In this episode, we are joined by Souleiman El Balkhi and Richard Kevin, who walk us through what it takes to make sense of the vast NPS terrain. In this episode we'll hear about: Keeping up with chemists engineering roughly 400–500 new psychoactive substances a year (about eight drugs a week!) Why synthetic cannabinoids and other NPS can be markedly more toxic than the prototype drugs they mimic Moving beyond immunoassays toward high-resolution mass spectrometry and cellular bioassay screens to catch substances without reference standards Why a single blood concentration rarely settles whether a dose was recreational or lethal Whether banning each new substance protects patients, or simply fuels the next, more potent generation About our guests: Dr Souleiman El Balkhi is a Toxicologist and Head of the Analytical and Environmental Toxicology Unit at Limoges University Hospital, and a researcher at INSERM UMR 1248 "Pharmacology & Transplantation," University of Limoges. His research focuses on hepatic biomarkers alongside environmental and forensic toxicology. Dr Richard Kevin is a Senior Hospital Scientist at St Vincent's Hospital Sydney and Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of New South Wales. His doctoral research characterised synthetic cannabinoids, and he now works on drug-checking trials across Australia. Eight Drugs a Week is supported by the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT). The personal views of the hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the position of the Association.

2. 

   10 Jul 2026

   Eight Drugs a Week Episode 19 – I Want to Hold Your Hand: Guiding Clinicians Through Antifungal TDM

   Fungal infections remain a stubborn clinical problem: treatment options are limited, and the margin between an ineffective dose and a toxic one is often narrow. Getting antifungal exposure right for each patient is not a formality; it can be the difference between clearing an infection and losing ground to it. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) offers clinicians a way to walk that line with more confidence, protecting efficacy on one side and guarding against adverse effects on the other. In this episode, Isabel Spriet and João Telles, both deeply immersed in antifungal TDM in their respective hospitals, walk us through what it takes to guide a patient safely through azole therapy: choosing the first dose without perfect information, watching for the factors that push exposure up or down, negotiating for hospital resources to make TDM possible, and untangling drug interactions that still defy easy explanation. In this episode we'll hear about: How azole TDM (especially for voriconazole) is embedded into daily practice in Leuven and São Paulo, and where turnaround times still get in the way of timely dose decisions The negotiation it takes to win hospital buy-in for a dedicated TDM team, built on clinical outcomes, value-based healthcare, and cost-effectiveness arguments Why azole monitoring means tracking liver function, inflammation, genetic polymorphisms, and ECMO-related drug sequestration alongside plasma concentrations Isabel's research into the flucloxacillin-voriconazole interaction, an abrupt CYP450-driven concentration drop that breaks the usual rules of enzyme induction Where TDM should go next: echinocandin monitoring, filter adsorption during continuous renal replacement therapy, and unexplained treatment failures with micafungin About our guests: Isabel Spriet is Head of the Clinical Pharmacy Department at University Hospitals Leuven and Professor at KU Leuven. João Telles is an infectious disease physician at the AC Camargo Cancer Centre in São Paulo, where he leads a dedicated antimicrobial TDM team. Eight Drugs a Week is supported by the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT). The personal views of the hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the position of the Association.

3. 

   16 May 2026

   Eight Drugs a Week Episode 18 – Rennes 2026: Day Tripper… Moving from Legend to Reality 🙌

   What do Arthurian legend, a medieval convent, and the future of precision medicine have in common? They all converge in Rennes, France this September - and if this episode is anything to go by, the IATDMCT-SFPT Joint Congress 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious meetings our community has ever produced. In a first for France, the IATDMCT and the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT) are joining forces under one roof, bringing together TDM specialists, clinical toxicologists, pharmacovigilance experts, and clinical pharmacologists to ask a deceptively simple question: are we finally ready to turn the promise of precision medicine into everyday clinical reality? In a special role reversal, our usual host Florian Lemaitre steps out from behind the microphone and into the hot seat, joined by his congress co-chair Marie-Clémence Verdier. Together, they take us on a tour of the scientific programme, the spirit behind the congress theme, and a few tantalising hints about what awaits delegates - including several secret surprises. In this episode we'll hear about: •  Why two major pharmacology societies are joining forces for the first time on French soil, and what the IATDMCT community stands to gain from meeting its French counterparts •  How Brittany's own history of myth and reinvention inspired a vision for translating TDM tools into everyday clinical practice •  The sessions not to miss, including deep-dives into antipsychotic TDM, antiretroviral therapy and a cross-disciplinary bench-to-bedside exploration of drugs and the liver •  How the young scientists programme is tackling large language models in translational science, covering education, research practice, and ethics •  What to expect beyond the science: a Breton welcome reception, a congress dinner, and our very own 'Day Tripper' post-congress excursion to Mont Saint-Michel Register for the Rennes congress at iatdmct-sfpt2026.org. About our guests: Florian Lemaitre is Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Rennes University Hospital, France, and co-host of the Eight Drugs a Week podcast. His research focuses on therapeutic drug monitoring and clinical pharmacology, and he serves as co-chair of the IATDMCT-SFPT Joint Congress 2026. Marie-Clémence Verdier is Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Rennes University Hospital, France. She is co-chair of the IATDMCT-SFPT Joint Congress 2026, with expertise spanning clinical pharmacy and pharmacology in the hospital setting. Eight Drugs a Week is supported by the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT). The personal views of the hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the position of the Association.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Spotify

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 26 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

29

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

60

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Guest appearances

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