Sponsored Podcasts

The nexus between biopharmaceuticals and sustainability is seemingly far apart, however, it is increasingly recognized as an inevitable challenge. It is encouraged to take a sustainable approach to reducing the environmental impact of the production and supply of medicines while improving people's health; delivering the well-being of people and the planet. Yosuke Shimojo (Technical Value Support Section Manager, Nagase Viita) will unveil how SOLBIOTE™, a portfolio of injectable-grade saccharide excipients, would be a key for the biopharmaceutical development and achieving sustainability for a better future of the industry.

In this podcast, we will explore the advantages of partnering with a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) to navigate the journey from molecule conception to clinical trials, including the expertise, experience, and preparedness that a CDMO brings to the table. The audience will gain valuable insights into crucial questions such as the optimal stage in the development process to engage with a CDMO, the necessary preparations for a successful collaboration, and whether a finalized molecule is required to initiate discussions with a CDMO. Join Curia’s Director, Process Development Science, Scott Alderucci, who leads the process development group at Curia, a global CDMO offering CDMO expertise for biologics and small molecules.

Robust, scalable manufacturing of novel therapeutics requires partnering with a CDMO equipped to adapt to changes in the market and knowledgeable on the latest technologies used to support cell line development.

Bernhard Schlichtner, Chief Commercial Officer at Single Use Support, offers valuable insights into why adopting a holistic approach to process solutions is the key to successful fluid & cold chain management.

Intensified continuous chromatography, a type of Multi-Column Chromatography (MCC), has emerged as a valuable technique in downstream bioprocessing that enables increases in productivity. In this podcast, MCC Product Specialist, Jennifer Knister, will discuss how adopting MCC can reduce costs, decrease suite time, and lead to higher resin utilization, along with why these benefits are particularly worthwhile in multi-product facilities.

Biopharma Resilience is declining. The 2023 Global Biopharma Resilience Index from Cytiva offers insights into the current state of the industry, shining a light on both areas of strength and opportunities for collaborative growth. By working together, biopharma leaders, academia, and policymakers can create lasting improvements. Join Ludovic Brellier, President of Biotechnology Integrated Solutions and Business Operations Leader at Cytiva, as he delves into this year’s Index findings. Specifically, he’ll highlight where the industry should turn their focus to ensure that patients are continuing to get the essential life-changing therapies they need.

Creating a new therapeutic drug can take a decade or more to get to patients. Antibody production and discovery play an integral role in setting the stage for success at later stages of development. If a high affinity, functional antibody candidate is discovered early, the timeline to a finished targeted and effective therapeutic drug may be significantly reduced. In this podcast we will go through the untold tales of antibody production and discovery, as well as how Twist has optimized a process for antibody production and screening for potential therapeutics.

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a widely used viral vector for the delivery of genetic material in gene therapy. Vector development and production at an industrial scale requires an efficient method for accurate quantification of viral capsids. Unfortunately, traditional techniques such as ELISA, HPLC, and ddPCR are time consuming and labor-intensive. This podcast introduces a rapid, label-free method for the direct capture and quantitation of various AAV serotypes using the Octet® Bio-Layer Interferometry (BLI) platform with Octet® AAVX Biosensors. These biosensors deliver results in as little as 15 minutes and can be used to quantitate AAV capsids in both crude and purified samples.

Speed-to-market, flexibility and process efficiency are more important than ever in biopharmaceutical production. And so is the importance of single-use systems. Single Use Support enables innovative process solutions around aseptic fluid management and improves aseptic liquid transfer in various manufacturing facilities. And yet there is hesitation.Dr. Lorenzo De Benedictis provides insights and outlook on the future of single-use systems in Biopharma.

When it comes to biotech, both the academic and industry settings are crucial in developing novel medicines. Dr Brent Cezairliyan has experienced both sides of biotech, first through an academic career exploring bacterial pathogenesis, and now in his administrative role at Octagon Therapeutics. The company, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focuses on autoimmune disease treatments. By developing targeted approaches to the inflammatory nature of the immune system, they hope their advances in biotech help future scientists navigate the field for years to come.

In this interview we will discuss recent strategies for upstream bioprocess analytics and how a thorough process understanding can improve product quality and process efficiency.

In this podcast, Richard Mirro, business manager at the Bioprocess Center of Eppendorf AG, explores how smart bioprocessing can help labs adapt to today’s demands, driving efficiency while making the development and production of next-generation molecules not only more economical, but also more reliable.

In this interview, we will talk about the typical developmental process of new vaccines and how the current Covid-19 situation influences the global vaccine developmental landscape.

After being diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma at age 15, Dr Joshua Schiffman was driven to pursue a career in medicine, starting as a pediatric oncologist, and was later drawn to the biotech side of the industry. Dr Schiffman was fascinated with a tidbit of knowledge: elephants almost never get cancer. He met Dr Avi Schroeder at a conference in Israel, and the two wondered how they could take this research about elephants’ cancer-fighting genes and apply it to humans. Together, they co-founded PEEL Therapeutics, the organization’s name meaning elephant in Hebrew, and currently work to bring together nature, medicine, and technology for the betterment of humankind. In this episode, Dr Schiffman provides a hopeful outlook on how nature and biotech can lead scientists to harness the power of evolution and create a bright future for medicine.

In this interview, we will talk about the advantages of changing from shake flasks to stirred-tank bioreactors, but also about the problems that can occur and things that have to be considered, in order to ensure proper cell growth.

While still considering himself a fundamental basic scientist, Samir Ounzain is embracing the biotech industry trend of merging academic research and biotechnological drug development. In this episode, Ounzain talks about his path from a dark theater as a kid watching Jurassic Park to the lab studying the dark matter of the human genome – and eventually to the founding of Haya Therapeutics, a biotech startup aiming to discover and develop safe and effective, tissue- and cell-selective, genome-based therapies for fibrotic diseases.

One of the harsher realities to balance in the biotechnology and life sciences industries is that success in the lab is not the same as success in business, and you have to run a successful business to keep the lab going. Kurt Gielen, co-founder and chief business officer of Medace, knew he didn’t belong in the lab but also that a career in the biotech business was his calling. Now he’s leveraging his 20 years of experience in the industry to help young companies strike that balance between business and science. Medace offers an innovative co-working environment where research and entrepreneurship meet – and grow. Kurt shares his path from the lab, across the globe, and eventually to this unique Belgium-based incubator committed to turning research into reality and discusses why he’s committed to making Medace’s resources and knowledge accessible to fledgling biotech companies all over the world.

Multi-column continuous chromatography (MCC) offers significant economic advantages over traditional batch methods for the purification of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), including increased resin capacity utilization, smaller columns, reduced buffer consumption, and faster processing time. For mAb productivity, the Protein A capture step is a primary target to apply MCC due to its high cost, which is driven even higher as improvements in upstream processing have produced a steady increase in mAb titers. The multi-column continuous chromatography method has demonstrated that mAb productivity can be increased by 400 to 500% compared to batch-mode.

For years pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers have invested in rigid stainless-steel equipment for upstream bioprocessing. With new and innovative single-use products now on the market, manufacturers have access to flexible, safe solutions that offer a myriad of advantages over the traditional solutions. Single-use technology offers less risk of contamination, more operator safety, and less negative environmental impact than the stainless-steel alternatives. In this podcast, we will discuss the challenges associated with handling powders in upstream biopharm processes and how single-use technology can benefit manufacturers from an environmental, cost, and safety perspective.

This is the year in which manufacturers will have the courage to bet on data aggregation and AI solutions that help them grow their capacity, moving away from pilot mode and embedding those tools as foundational assets. These have become critical levers to support the expanded demand for drug manufacturing, especially exacerbated with the pandemic. Join John Vitalie, CEO at Aizon, as we discuss how Pharma 4.0 is transforming the pharma landscape to bring gains to manufacturers and to the patients they serve.

Fill finish (sterile filtration) operations are critical and often the only means to produce sterile liquid biopharmaceuticals as other means of sterilization will degrade the product(s). This complex packaging process has become more regulated and controlled in an effort to reduce the risks of contamination (with the greatest risk potential coming from cleanroom operators). This episode reviews current market trends and provides some characteristics expected of a top notch Fill Finish CMO, like Samsung Biologics in Incheon, South Korea.

It is the bottleneck in pharmaceutical manufacturing: Lead times. Which are the approaches that may secure business continuity? What are ways to overcome dependencies on vendors’ supply? Barbara Fischer gives insights on how single-use system providers tackle this industry-wide challenge in supply chain.

Lipid-based formulations are gaining global awareness, notably with lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) being a key component in several current COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines. Lipid-based formulations, including liposomes and LNPs, are an effective drug delivery system for a variety of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), notably for complex parenteral drug products including cancer, viral, and gene therapeutics. In this podcast, we discuss how Emergent has been involved in the manufacturing of lipid-based formulations over the past two decades, along with factors to consider when partnering with a CDMO for lipid-based formulation manufacturing.

Perfusion technology is a tool to increase productivity that can be applied at different stages during upstream cell culture for biotherapeutics products. Perfusion allows removal of waste by-products and replenishment of fresh nutrients so that the cells are able to grow and reach higher cell densities and higher productivity. N-1 perfusion, the application of the perfusion technology in the step immediately before the production bioreactor, is a good option for processes that exhibit low productivity. Join Claudia Berdugo, Ph.D., Director of Process Development at Catalent Biologics, for a podcast where she discusses N-1 perfusion and how Catalent Biologics works toward process improvements for each client to enable them to move their pharmaceutical products forward with confidence.

When university and industry researchers work in tandem to conquer big challenges in medicine, they can achieve much more together than they ever could apart. Sue Fletcher, a pioneer in RNA therapeutic and Chief Scientific Officer at PYC Therapeutics, know this firsthand. She has spent decades in the field and is the co-developer of some revolutionary genetic therapies for treating rare diseases. Here, Dr. Fletcher speaks with BioPharm International about her work in this field, her incredible career, and how she’s inspiring young scientists in this complex area.

Changes in production scale required due to increasing product needs throughout clinical trials introduces risk to the product development timeline. Both the process and the product can be dramatically impacted from scaling-up to larger production volumes. Once in commercial manufacturing, sudden changes to product demand in either direction can have costly consequences if the scale of production chosen is not adequate to meet the changing material requirements. Adapting a “scale-out” instead of “scale-up” strategy for clinical and commercial production can greatly minimize these risks. This podcast will review the scale-out biomanufacturing approach and the significant benefits of this production paradigm.

Cell and gene therapies may well be some of the most important recent advancements in modern medicine. The way they work, however, is very complex and completely different from any pill that simply addresses symptoms. So who are the pioneers in this field and what dares them to ask “what if”? In this episode of the Building Biotechs podcast series sponsored by Thermo Fisher Scientific, learn from Ainslie Little, senior vice president of corporate strategy at BlueRock Therapeutics, how her company’s cell & gene platform is breaking new ground in this important space.