4 Ways to Build
a More Resilient
Biopharma Industry
From life-saving cancer drugs to seasonal flu shots, innovations in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology have a positive impact on countless lives on a daily basis.
Nothing demonstrated the importance of biopharmaceutical innovation quite like the Covid-19 pandemic. As the virus spread across the world, the therapeutics industry mobilized to create the vaccines that allowed countries to emerge from lockdowns, bringing into sharp focus the importance of being able to develop new medicines at speed. But although the Covid-19 pandemic has now passed its peak, the industry still faces challenges when it comes to preparedness and meeting future demand.
“Drug development, from the early stages of discovery to the late stages of final drug delivery, is a very expensive and lengthy process,” says Ludovic Brellier, president of biotechnology integrated solutions at Cytiva, a global provider of drug development and manufacturing technologies and services. If these roadblocks were lifted, drugs could get to patients quicker and save more lives. So what solutions are on the horizon?
Filling the skills gapKeeps
When the Egyptians built the Pyramids, they were able to do more by using the ramp and lever system to lift huge stone blocks to the next level of construction.
Maximizing a limited work force is not, of course, confined to the ancient world. The life sciences industry is facing a talent crunch — and it’s working on innovative tools to overcome it, much as the Egyptians did millennia ago.
“Talent is always challenging, and it is what makes or breaks an industry,” says Dr. Iwan Roberts, vice president of tech and innovation strategy at Cytiva. In a survey of 1,250 biopharma executives, Cytiva found that many reported substantial challenges in finding and retaining talent — and that this hampered the resilience of the industry.
According to Emmanuel Abate, president of genomic medicine at Cytiva, there’s a particular lack of skilled talent to support critical work in drug manufacturing. “Companies fight hard enough to find the scientists that can help them develop drugs,” he says, “but then they don't have the people that can help them manufacture [them].”
To fill the gap, Cytiva is using automation to increase manufacturing efficiency, as well as predictive digital tools that can model processes without using workers’ time to build and test them. The company also runs training through virtual reality and its Fast Trak™ courses, where customers can learn to use new equipment and optimize their workflows.
If the talent gap can be closed with tech and training, it’ll mean products are brought to market faster.
Localized manufact-
uringKeeps
Localized manufacturingKeeps
Over the past few decades, the pharmaceutical industry has supplied therapeutics to an increasingly global market — meaning medicines made in one location are transported worldwide. This has enabled economies of scale in manufacturing, bringing down costs.
Then the pandemic happened. “The supply chain experienced a lot of disruption,” says Brellier. “Companies have been challenged to find new ways of working to adapt to a new world.”
Post-pandemic, governments and manufacturers have turned toward localized production to provide faster access to critical medicines. It means drug manufacturing now has to work a bit like an orchestra, in which a range of musicians in different sections contribute to producing a common, life-enhancing outcome.
Cytiva acts as a composer developing a symphony for those orchestras, fine tuning many instruments and tying them all together to create harmonious arrangements that can be employed anywhere, by anyone. For example, the company’s FlexFactory™ platform provides a modular, end-to-end solution for technically advanced processes that biopharma companies can deploy closer to patients.
“The customer doesn't have to go and pick what they need from each supplier,” says Brellier. “We provide the equipment and we connect it all together using automation. It's modular and flexible, meaning the time needed to build is reduced.” Depending on a workflow’s complexity, platforms like the FlexFactory™ solution from Cytiva can cut the time it takes to set up a new manufacturing site by up to 18 months.
The platform is also useful if companies need to pivot to manufacturing a different drug using the same infrastructure. “Maybe you want to have one drug one day, another drug another day — this modular, flexible approach enables greater efficiency,” says Roberts.
“Talent is always challenging, and it is what makes or breaks
an industry,”
Dr. Iwan Roberts
vice president of tech and innovation strategy at Cytiva
More efficient processesKeeps
Cruise ships are lumbering beasts which, because of their size and weight, struggle to make spontaneous maneuvers. They’re the opposite of the nimble speedboat: able to make quick, agile moves.
If companies are agile and can react in real time, they’re able to move faster and avoid spending money on dead ends. Cytiva is working on a number of tools that can help companies do just that.
One of these is data analytics. “Capturing data along the manufacturing process can help understand how to optimize it and make more real-time decisions,” says Brellier. “You collect data and then use software that will turn the data into analytics.” Cytiva has developed systems that suggest ways to tweak the manufacturing process based on this available data.
Cytiva also has digital technology that can simulate parts of the production process, such as the company’s GoSilico™ chromatography modeling software. Modeling a workflow using a computer allows for fast iteration and optimization before anything is actually built. Other tools can predict when equipment will need servicing, preventing unexpected downtime and production delays.
Bringing in automation and analytics can make companies more nimble. “The end goal is to go faster and to speed up discovery,” says Abate, “but there’s also an element of process consistency” — if parts of the process are automated, it removes the likelihood of error and contamination.
“The end goal is to go faster and to speed up discovery.”
Emmanuel Abate
president of genomic medicine at Cytiva
Plug-and-play solutionsKeeps
Although a dressmaker might use the same pattern for a number of clients, each dress is tailored to the individual’s body and style. Scientists craft new medicines in much the same way: They take known processes and tailor them to create formulations that treat a range of conditions.
One of the most transformative developments in recent years has been the rise of messenger RNA therapies — the science that some of the Covid vaccines were based on. “This technology is going to be very important,” says Roberts. “It can open up a whole new way of delivering therapeutics to patients.”
“The hot thing right now is a personalized cancer vaccine and working out how we use mRNA to do that. It requires inventing a new manufacturing process – down from making vaccines for millions to making unique, personalized doses,” says Abate.
Cytiva has been able to tailor the solutions it already had to help customers work with, and start manufacturing, mRNA-based therapies.
“It obviously requires a different workflow, but we can use our expertise from a process development perspective and transpose it onto the new modality,” says Brellier.
