DCAT Week ’18 entered its second day on Tuesday 20 March in New York. The Executive Insights programme is now in full swing and the lobbies of all of the hotels involved were packed all days with people networking. We should know – we went to all but one of them as went around taking the pulse of the industry.

James Park

One rising giant in the biologics sector is Samsung BioLogics. Chief Business Officer James Park said that the company has risen in seven years to have the largest capacity on the market, thanks in large part to its collective experience in building manufacturing capacity quickly. It also draws on Samsung’s knowledge from building semiconductor and petrochemical plants.

Samsung BioLogics recently completed its largest plant at Incheon, Korea, with 180,000 litres of capacity. This will be GMP-ready in October and the first manufacturing contract has already been signed with an unnamed US firm. “We are currently in talks with about six other companies for additional orders for the plant this year,” Park added.

Michel Spagnol

Another major CDMO is France’s Novasep. Much of its investment in the past year has been on emerging technologies like monoclonal antibodies, viral vectors and cryogenics, complementing previous investments in antibody-drug conjugates.

However, said CEO Michel Spagnol, the company continues to invest in small molecule too, particularly in specialised technologies to address the increasing complexity of these molecules.

Craig Recatto

Spectrum Chemical is always out in force at DCAT Week and is sponsoring the speaker at the dinner this year. Dr Craig Recatto, President of the Pharmacy Division, told us that the main news at the moment is that the company is now distributing certain BASF platinum-supported catalysts in the US. It is also moving back into pharmacy compounding, including setting up an education facility for pharmacists at its site in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Clariant’s Healthcare Packaging business unit is using DCAT Week to present its new EQius brand name.

Mark Florez

Originally applying to a silica gel-based desiccant and humectant, this will now cover all of the products and technologies the unit supplies related to equilibrium relative humidity stabilisation.

Product manager Mark Florez told us this move is being made to unify a range that has grown significantly and now encompasses EQ-Pak packets, EQ-Can canisters, EQ-Stopper closures and EQ-Bag bags. The products themselves are not changing.

Joe Luke

Also in packaging at a very different level is Reed-Lane from nearby Wayne, New Jersey, a supplier of contract packaging services to both RX and OTC drugs companies. Joe Luke, VP of Sales & Marketing, had taken a suite for the first time, partly because he felt that small companies like this tend to get lost among the large equipment suppliers at traditional shows like Interphex.

BioPharma Services is a Toronto-based clinical CRO. Craig Leach, Director of Business Development, was visiting to meet potential clients, both for its core business of clinical trials but also for the more profitable bioanalytical studies it can offer at a time of tight margins for those who serve the generics industry.

Craig Leach

“We are also looking at more specialised trials like human abuse liability trials, which not many CROs do, and first-to-file opportunities,” he said. “We conducted our first of those last month and it went really well.”