Ashish Punia is a Principal Scientist in the Materials and Biophysical Characterization Group at Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway NJ. Prior to joining Merck, he received his PhD in Polymer Chemistry and MPhil in Chemistry from The Graduate Center, the City University of New York. He works as a material characterization lead on various drug product development teams and supports physico-chemical understanding of drug substance and drug product formulations. Ashish represents Merck in the IQ Consortium’s working group on amorphous solid dispersions and is a co-lead on several Industry – academic collaborations. His research interests include amorphous solid dispersions, novel drug delivery technologies and characterization techniques, and mechanistic understanding of stability and process aspects in drug products.