The first article in this periodic series reviewed the impact of cost pressures on the biopharmaceutical industry, in particular the challenges the industry faces in relation to high capital costs, complex processes, and long product development cycles (1). Here we examine what companies are doing to assess costs in decisions about process and technology choices relating to manufacturing of biologic drug substances. We will look into what companies are currently doing and what they need to be doing…
June 2010
Manufacture Locally, Market Globally?
One response to a survey we sent out last year kept coming back to me as we prepared this issue. In answer to what a company does if a product in development doesn’t fit into the company’s platform technology, one answer was, “We innovate a solution.†Whether meant seriously or not, it rings true to the history of the industry’s ability to invent and reinvent solutions as necessitated by economic realities. When we began working on the topic…
Contractor Responsibilities in Outsourced Pharmaceutical Quality Control Testing
Pharmaceutical companies of all sizes outsource at least some quality control (QC) testing to contract analytical testing laboratories. Virtual and smaller companies may not have the staff to conduct such testing, whereas mid- to large-size companies may outsource testing that they do not wish to perform in-house. In the relationship between a pharmaceutical company and its outsourcing partner, each partner has clearly delineated responsibilities, both business and compliance related. In May 2010, we discussed a contractee’s (contract giver’s)…
A Convergence of New Products and Technologies Changes the Game
Vaccine makers are leading the way — that’s something you don’t hear every day. For many years, vaccines were seen as “old-school†and less profitable than other biologic products — and they were the business of just a few huge companies. But thanks to recombinant technology, it’s a real Cinderella story: Advancing technologies led to what’s being called the “vaccine renaissance.†And now, vaccine companies may have something to teach their biopharmaceutical brethren. In April 2004, BPI may…
Practical Considerations for DoE Implementation in Quality By Design
It is generally accepted that quality cannot be tested or inspected into a finished product, but rather that quality, safety, and effectiveness must be “designed†and built into a product and its manufacturing process. To encourage new initiatives and provide guidance to pharmaceutical process developers, the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use introduced the quality by design (QbD) concept. ICH-Q8 defines it as “a systematic approach to development that begins…
How Geography Affects the Cost of Biomanufacturing
As the biopharmaceutical industry undergoes restructuring, its focus shifts to the efficiency of drug development and overall costs of delivering affordable medicines. A question often raised concerns the manufacture of drug substances overseas to tap into a cheaper manufacturing base (1). There are many issues to consider when looking at overseas locations, such as intellectual property (IP), the availability of skilled labor, and the emergence of new markets. The situation is more complex with biopharmaceuticals because the products…
Minimizing Costs and Process Times with Local Biomanufacturing
For a growing number of biopharmaceutical companies, the world is getting smaller. They are operating in smaller, more flexible facilities; servicing potentially smaller markets; and managing local products. Local manufacturers are looking for ways of doing standard processing less expensively without making changes that carry regulatory risk. Most of these facilities are vaccine manufacturing sites. The upsurge in localized diseases and need for global pandemic preparedness (especially under uncertain capacities) have countries such as Malaysia, India, China, and Brazil pushing…
Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting for CGMP Processing of Therapeutic Cells
Cell therapy using embryonic or adult stem cells for regenerative medicine is generating high interest in the global medical community and in the general population.Physicians and patients are looking to cell therapies as potentially curative treatments for diseases such as diabetes, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, Graft versus Host disease (GvHD), and cancer. Cell-based therapeutic products have been administered in clinics for nearly 90 years in the form of blood transfusions and for 50 years in the…
Biomanufacturing Locally, Thinking Globally
Compared with other business sectors, the biopharmaceutical industry has been a high-tech laggard when it comes to outsourcing and off-shoring. That’s changing as companies acknowledge the strategic, cost, and market benefits. Over the past seven years of tracking outsourcing trends (1), I’ve seen interest in outsourcing grow, but that has kicked into high gear over the past couple years. Partly due to the economic and funding crisis and partly as a result of industry maturation, outsourcing is taking…
I’m Losing Cell Viability and Function at Different Points in My Process, and I Don’t Know Why!
Development of cell and tissue therapies presents bottlenecks in manufacturing process development and scale-up as commercial and academic groups move from small-scale research and development (R&D) to more complex logistics. Often, the simplicity of maintaining cell yield, viability, and function in a laboratory setting cannot be replicated when source tissue and final therapeutic products are subjected to the extended distances and times of actual clinical delivery. These bottleneck issues have a number of causes. One specific and common…