PHARMACEUTICALS
Seqens owns the former Chemie Uetikon site at Lahr , Germany
also increasing R & D capability and productivity for the development and production of APIs and active delivery systems ( lipids and polymers ) in the US , where Seqens already has a CDMO operation , formerly PCI Synthesis , at nearby Newburyport .
Ongoing investment
Earlier investments to modernise and add capacity to address developing market needs , included over € 35 million in Band 4 HPAPI capacity at the Villeneuve-la-Garenne site near Paris which was unveiled by President Macron in August 2020 . This was qualified last year and is ready to go , with a contract in place to ramp up production for a key customer . Also in 2021 , a € 5 million investment was completed at Porcheville , the global R & D centre , which is also near Paris . This encompassed modernisation and buying new equipment , notably for solid-state chemistry . “ With this investment , we really have a world class R & D centre ,” says Clavel . “ We have amazing labs there .” Ongoing investments include about € 25 million in further HPAPI capabilities at the Aramon site in southern France , which should be ready in 2023 for the manufacture of Band 4 products . Seqens will also spend nearly € 15 million to upgrade and modernise the sites at Limay , near Paris , and Bourgouin , near Lyon . Flow chemistry is another area that Seqens is keen to push forward . “ We are investing both in a pilot unit in Porcheville that is now ready to use , and we plan to build a multi-purpose industrial facility in the years to come ,” Clavel adds . Business has inevitably been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic . “ It was a weird period of time ,” Clavel recalls . “ On the one hand , clinical studies that were not related to COVID itself were slowing down and we had a lot of partners delaying their purchase orders on R & D studies and clinical programmes . “ On the other , COVID-19 was the trigger for an onshoring wave , when many actors in the pharma industry understood that going to the Far East could be dangerous and you have to balance your supply chain between India , China and the US . We benefitted from that with an increased flow of requests , specifically for GMP intermediates but also for some APIs , both on the CDMO side and generics .” The onshoring wave is still bringing additional opportunities right now , Clavel confirms , and the CDMO sector remains strong . However , he does not believe that bigger necessarily means better in this market .
What CDMOs need
“ In my view , the essence of the CDMO business is customer-centricity . You have to have teams that are engaged to understand customers ’ needs . Is it technology-based , speed , cost , quality , regulatory ? What we do is to provide solutions to a given challenge , whatever it is , and provide our value to customers ,” he says . “ All this being said , to achieve this you need to be flexible , to have joint organisations , of course to have a technology toolbox to address a broad variety of market needs . You need to be able to work from R & D to industrial manufacturing , to have operational excellence and to work continuously on your processes in order to have reliable operations . “ And you must be able to have the services necessary to speed up market access , like analytical services , Design of Experiments or regulatory support . You don ’ t need to be the biggest , though of course you need the critical mass to address growing complexity in most of the projects and better place customers at the heart of what you do .” On this basis , Clavel foresees consolidation continuing in the industry . Like everyone who has been in the industry for a long time , however , he recognises that pharma has been here before , starting with the late 1990s when an anticipated boom in fine chemicals led to a wave of often rash , ill-planned consolidation . “ In this industry , there are always cycles in consolidation that creates some giants , then people decide they have to be more specialised and start divesting again ,” he says . •
Candice du Chayla
COMUNICATION & ESG DIRECTOR
SEQENS k + 33 7 61 80 62 33 J candice . duchayla @ seqens . com j www . seqens . com
24 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981