Forward of this yr’s Interphex assembly in New York Metropolis, Jerry Keybl, Avantor’s senior vp, biopharma merchandise and technique, sat down with GEN to debate present traits within the biologics area, and serving to biomanufacturers navigate the present political and financial local weather in the US.
Earlier this yr, the corporate expanded the capability of its European facility in Gliwice, Poland, for manufacturing, formulating, and filling United States purified water and water for injection-based hydration options. These are utilized in buffer preparation, cell tradition media, clean-in-process, and formulation processes.
In November 2024, Avantor opened a 60,000-square-foot innovation heart in Bridgewater, NJ, one among 13 facilities globally that home labs for Avantor’s inner analysis and improvement actions in addition to for its scientists to work on biomanufacturing tasks straight with prospects. The brand new heart doubles Avantor’s earlier laboratory and pilot plant capability and consists of areas for upstream and downstream course of improvement together with devoted analytical testing laboratories and a viral vector laboratory. It additionally consists of clear rooms for piloting bioprocessing workflows for monoclonal antibodies, mRNAs, and AAVs that may finally be scaled as much as run at bigger manufacturing websites. Apart from its innovation facilities, Avantor has additionally established distribution facilities and biosciences manufacturing companies that present lab providers and deal with manufacturing.
What follows is a model of the dialog with Keybl that has been edited for size and readability.
GEN: Avantor might be at Interphex this yr. Will you be making any huge bulletins on the assembly? What can attendees anticipate?
Keybl: There are three huge issues that we needed to showcase by way of our merchandise—scalability, flexibility, and effectivity—and the way bioprocessing options can tackle every of these. Scalability is an attention-grabbing query within the trade. Therapeutic[s] must be manufactured at completely different scales economically and so we’re eager on showcasing options for course of improvement during to very massive campaigns. An instance of the product[s] that we’ll be showcasing [are] our magnetic mixing methods. Final yr we, launched a mini magnetic mixer that has the identical person interface as our huge gear, [and] permits prospects to do smaller processing and improvement extra environment friendly[ly].
The second subject [is] flexibility and adaptableness. I don’t assume we’ve ever had so many modalities concurrently being manufactured by our prospects. Monoclonal antibodies have been the bread and butter and nonetheless are throughout the trade, however we [also] have peptide therapeutics, viral vector therapeutics, cell remedy. We’re showcasing options there which are modular [for] adapting workflows [to] manufacture completely different therapeutics in the identical area, [which is] significantly necessary for our CDMO prospects. An instance of that’s simplifying buffer administration by way of our direct dispense providing.
The final piece of that is round effectivity. We’re all conscious of the macro surroundings that we’re going through proper now and the significance of doing issues effectively. We take a reasonably expansive have a look at processes and take into consideration the sorts of improvements that we will convey and options that we will convey which are going to scale back the overall value of producing for our prospects.
GEN: What are a few of the greatest development areas for Avantor in 2025 and past? It feels like cell and gene therapies is perhaps one.
Keybl: We [already] talked slightly bit about magnetic mixers. We’re additionally bringing a tangential circulation filtration system to showcase [at Interphex] that has had an incredible curiosity from cell and gene remedy and viral vector producers. We’re actually targeted on the methods enterprise and providing modular and configurable choices [that] assist prospects additional optimize their course of. That’s one actually huge space of development for us.
The opposite one is round a few of the reagents that we’ve put out. Once we take into consideration cell and gene remedy, one of many key steps in producing a viral vector is round cell lysis. We’ve got a brand new reagent that we launched final yr to assist cell and gene remedy, [and] we’ve one other reagent [for] monoclonal antibodies round viral inactivation … that’s extra ecologically pleasant than alternate options.
GEN: Earlier, you talked about a few of the main biologics classes that the neighborhood is engaged on. What are some key traits within the area out of your perspective?
Keybl: [What’s] at all times attention-grabbing to me [is] how the modalities are evolving. The reply sooner or later, could be the identical as when you requested me a yr in the past, which is a basket of various kinds of modalities [that target] difficult illnesses. We’ve got seen an increase in antibody-drug conjugates over the past a number of years, … and there’s going to be new alternatives for tweaks and improvements [there]. Additionally, mRNA was the massive sizzling subject a few years in the past [and] earlier than that there was loads round cell remedy and CAR-T [therapies]. Cell remedy is possibly heating up once more this yr. [Also] viral vectors [will] proceed to be an necessary modality even within the face of the current unhappy information out of Sarepta. [Editor’s note: Sarepta Therapeutics said recently that a patient died following treatment with its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.]
GEN: Stepping again a bit for a broader perspective, as we glance forward, how can biologics builders and producers navigate what’s shaping as much as be a difficult financial and political local weather for biologics?
Keybl: It’s a query that’s most likely on everybody’s minds nowadays. What’s clear in 2025 is that the optimum answer sooner or later may look slightly bit completely different than it did final yr. I don’t assume the market’s shifting in a essentially completely different path than it was in 2024, I’d say. However the place individuals select to speculate geographically may need some modifications. On the finish of the day, the entire trade is targeted on ensuring that sufferers get the therapies they want and the variety of sufferers that exist on this planet isn’t impacted essentially by this [climate]. There’s the identical want on the market for sturdy scientific options, which suggests additionally that the basic financial drivers are going to be just about the identical.
One of many benefits of being a worldwide provider is that we’ve footprints in numerous areas in order that we will meet prospects the place they’re. We are able to make investments somewhere else to be the place our prospects are and leverage the worldwide footprint that we’ve.
GEN: Let’s speak about synthetic intelligence briefly. Are you able to converse to what Avantor’s plans are when it comes to the know-how?
Keybl: In all probability similar to each different firm, we’ve been taking a look at that for a while and have our personal inner instruments that we’re utilizing. And we’re taking a look at ways in which we will use AI to assist prospects make choices. One of many pilots that [my team has] been engaged on is round serving to prospects ask questions that result in the best product with the best attributes for his or her options.
GEN: Final November, Avantor opened a brand new innovation heart in Bridgewater, NJ. Are you able to share an replace on how issues have been going there?
Keybl: I believe our groups are way more productive. When you consider doubling the quantity of area we’ve and [being] higher capable of run processes which are similar to our prospects, that going to actually pay dividends for us over the course of the subsequent a number of years.
GEN: Do you’ve any new merchandise deliberate that you would be able to talk about publicly right now? Any plans to launch further innovation facilities sooner or later?
Keybl: We’ve got a handful of merchandise that we anticipate launching this yr—nothing that we’re going to be talking about but. We proceed to speculate throughout our community. One of many issues that we introduced was a big hydration facility in Poland that present[s] ready-to-use inventory buffers. We made a really massive funding there to serve prospects in Europe, and we proceed to do these issues, along with launching merchandise.
