Business

Post-COVID Supply-Chain Challenges Are Easing, Part 1: New Competition Is Changing Industry’s Buying Behavior

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The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic created unprecedented stresses on bioprocessing and healthcare supply chains as suppliers struggled to find materials to meet demand for COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. BioPlan Associates, with BioPhorum and its members, recently researched the biomanufacturing industry’s response to the pandemic and prepared a white paper, Impact of COVID-19 on the Bioprocessing Supply Chain (1). Before COVID-19, the bioprocess supply industry had been growing consistently at 12–14% (nearly doubling revenue every five years) since 1990. During COVID, growth in…

June 26, 2023

eBook: Working Together Is Key to Bioprocess Sustainability

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Sustainability initiatives are launching across the biopharmaceutical industry as companies begin to scrutinize their environmental impacts as part of the growing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement in business. Achieving ambitious sustainability goals will require organizations to evaluate their raw materials, production processes, product packaging, operations, and supply and distribution chains — and such work will entail monumental effort. Herein, BPI managing editor Brian Gazaille speaks with Brian Fahie, head of analytical development at Biogen, about that company’s efforts to…

May 30, 2023

The Future of Virtual Audits and Audit Success

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Audits are a vital quality-management tool in the biopharmaceutical industry. Whether the activity is verifying supplier or partner qualifications, contributing to corrective and preventative actions (CAPAs), or fulfilling regulatory requirements, proactive auditing is key to successful operations. Over the past couple of years, virtual audits — also known as remote or distance audits — have enabled biopharmaceutical companies to maintain compliance and quality-assurance (QA) demands despite COVID-19–related travel restrictions and social-distancing protocols. Now that the world is opening up again,…

May 23, 2023

Biopharma 4.0 — the Talent Evolution

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Biopharma 4.0 refers to applications of data and digital technologies to biotherapeutic manufacturing. Technological advances now enable the internet and its embedded systems to serve as a nucleus through which biomanufacturers can integrate production lines and processes across organizational boundaries, thereby forming a networked and agile value chain. Solutions under the industry 4.0 umbrella include • platforms for “smart” manufacturing made possible by the internet of things (IoT) • artificial intelligence (AI) • systems for process automation • technologies for…

April 20, 2023

Risk-Based Biologics: CMC Flexibilities in the EU Regulatory System

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Pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies strive to foster scientific excellence in drug development and evaluation so that members of the public can access the high-quality medicines that they need. Recent European Medicines Agency (EMA) approvals for COVID-19 vaccines highlight those organizational accomplishments and showcase the application of risk-based chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) flexibilities that are embedded within the European Union (EU) regulatory system. Many of the CMC flexibilities outlined herein were established for PRIME (priority medicine), a scheme that…

March 21, 2023

The Talent Enigma in Digital Biomanufacturing

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Demand for talent in the biopharmaceutical industry already had been climbing before the COVID-19 pandemic, showing an increase of 26% from 2018 to 2020. By the end of 2021, a further 32% surge was observed in the United States and Europe, against a 10% rise in the supply of expertise. Bolstered at first by the need to manufacture SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapeutics and now by the threat of new pandemics, current market drivers include increases in investment, initial public offerings…

February 9, 2023

How To Achieve DSCSA Compliance by November 2023

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As the world surges into the new year, pharmaceutical companies that manufacture pharmaceuticals in and/or for the United States seeking to comply with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) may find themselves scrambling to meet the 27 November 2023 deadline requiring them to track and trace prescription drug products within the supply chain. Congress enacted the 60-page DSCSA in November 2013 as Title II of the Drug Quality Security Act (DQSA) to protect patient safety. That provided the pharmaceutical…

February 9, 2023

The Best Places to Work in Biotech: Perspectives on Job Satisfaction in the Biopharmaceutical Ecosystem

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In late spring of 2022, the combined BPI editorial and marketing teams sent out a “Best Places to Work in Biotech” survey to BPI readers. Similar surveys appear every year from a number of other organizations. Our focus was less data driven than many others, instead inviting commentary on factors that are becoming essential to job satisfaction and employee retention. One strong conclusion to draw from our reader responses is that people in biopharmaceutical careers want to play a key…

December 20, 2022

Increasing Clinical Trial Inclusivity: Technology-Enabled Community Connections

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Clinical trial inclusivity strengthens analyses, speeds trial completion and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals, and lowers administrative costs of clinical studies. However, a mounting body of evidence shows that eligibility criteria often limit enrollment inclusivity and compromise trial data. For example, a retrospective review of 302 drug submissions to the FDA examined the impact of insufficient data on drug approvals. Nearly 16% of the reviewed studies had insufficient data to determine safe dosages, and over 13% revealed inconsistent results…

December 12, 2022

US Patent Law: A 20-Year Retrospective

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The past 20 years have been extraordinary for intellectual property law. Most of the transformations can be attributed to changes in the statute, US Supreme Court jurisprudence, almost complete turnover in judges in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit,” below), and advances in technology that could not have been anticipated in 2002. An understanding of those changes requires a retrospective of patent law over those 20 years. At that time, the Federal Circuit was 20 years…

October 20, 2022