Podcast: Fujifilm Diosynth CEO on pandemics, CAPEX, and CGT ambitions

Martin Meeson discusses Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies’s role in pandemics past and future, and why the CDMO just won’t stop investing in capacity.

The BioProcess Insider Expression Platform (BIEP) is back, bringing you some of the conversations you may have missed at BIO 2022 in San Diego, California.

We sat down with Martin Meeson, CEO of Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, to discuss industry’s learnings from the pandemic.

“[COVID-19] was a pandemic but I just worry we forget and we won’t use the lessons that we’ve already learned today to be ready for potentially the next one as well,” he said. “The way that we’ve operated and the way that we’ve demonstrated we can do that, we need to continue to build focus on that both with industry partners and government partners to make sure that we are ready, should we need to respond again, it’s just so important that we do that as we move forward.”

Having the technologies capabilities is important, he said, but working with the supply chain is critical. “We’ve seen and felt the supply chain in this pandemic and just making sure that we’ve got the support we need there, which is why a lot of the things we’re doing is taking some of that complexity and getting a little bit more standardisation into that supply chain is just so important.”

He also spoke about some of the major capital expenditure projects the CDMO is undertaking, including the ¥200 billion ($1.5 billion) greenfield facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, and hinted at further investments to come. Two weeks after BIO, the company announced a $1.6 billion investment at facilities in Denmark and Texas.

Listen to the full interview below, or download it at iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts from.