Now the CDIR is home to 12 different research teams including virology, pathobiology, biomarker sciences, oncology inflammation, fibrosis, and immunology. Before CIDR was built, Gilead’s researchers and their laboratories were spread across six different facilities on the company’s 101-acre campus in Foster City, California. Gilead Sciences won for their Center for Innovative Drug Research (CIDR). In 2021, we’re saving lives,” said Tom Ross, President and CEO, GRAM. “This award highlights all of the things that came together over the years. GRAM is an injectable contract development and manufacturing organization and because of the smart choices they made throughout the planning and construction phases and ongoing team collaboration, they were able to run a first batch of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate six weeks ahead of their original operational schedule. Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing (GRAM) won for their Large-Scale-Fill-Finish-Facility. We will need to follow these examples and more to address future global health needs.” Both companies won Operational Agility: COVID-19 Impact awards. “The judges awarded projects in a special category related to COVID-19 responses for Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing (GRAM) and Gilead Sciences. “So many partners collaborated to make BaseCamp what it is today."Īnother key factor for the winning projects that Vermunt pointed to was agility. "We're not a large pharmaceutical organization, so we relied on our partners from the beginning, from construction all the way through operating the company,” said Mike Paglia, Chief Operating Officer, ElevateBio. Home to leading scientists and academic researchers who are working with medical centers and corporate partners to advance cell and gene therapies, BaseCamp is a cGMP facility where those, and other, therapies can be made safely and cost-effectively. Locus Biosciences’ Commercial Phage Production Facility Upfit, a cGMP commercial phage production environment with maximum flexibility to generate, purify, and aseptically fill therapeutic doses of antibacterial phage to fight critical unmet medical needs and diseases won an Honorable Mention award.ĮlevateBio won the Operational Excellence award for their BaseCamp project, a dedicated cell and gene therapy technology, research and development, process development, and manufacturing facility. “We are an integrated facility, an exciting facility delivering oncology products for Takeda,” said Cyril Buckley, Vice President, Head of Engineering Plasma, Takeda, when accepting the award on behalf of the team in Ireland. Before completing the project, production of Takeda’s oncology medication, Ninlaro, was spread across 4 different facilities.
The Grange Castle Factory P2 Facility in Ireland includes drug substance manufacture (DS), drug product (DP) blistering and secondary packaging, QC testing, and QA operations in one dedicated building. Everyone knows that in a manufacturing area where you have many different products, this is a breakthrough.” “The team was able to achieve in the packaging area a line clearance from approximately 30 min average down to one minute. “This is the first time ever an automated line clearance has been implemented in the pharma industry connected with artificial intelligence,” said Gunter Baumgartner, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Engineering for Takeda. The F36 project includes a fully automatic end-to-end packaging line with a high level of equipment automation, AGVs, and an innovative fully automated best in class line clearance check system. Takeda Pharmaceuticals International AG won two awards: the Process Intelligence and Innovation award for their F36 New Solid Pharmaceutical Building and Automatic Line Clearance in Hikari, Japan, and the Facility Integration award for a project in Ireland. We see the realization of Pharma 4.0 in Takeda Japan’s Process Intelligence and Innovation win, but we also see innovation in Locus Bioscience’s pioneering product, Takeda Ireland’s facility implementation, as well as ElevateBio’s novel take on industry ecosystem.” We all want to see the most cutting-edge technology incorporated into these projects, and this year was no different. “As I reflect on what these winners did, several things stand-out to me. In the middle of navigating lockdowns, travel restrictions, supply shortages, personnel, and work from home protocols,” said Vermunt. “As we recognize tonight’s winners, we have to remember that these projects were submitted about a year ago.