The Importance of Agile Raw Material Supply

Gearoid O’Rourke
VP of Global Marketing
Actylis

Recent global events, most significantly COVID-19, have caused major disruption to global supply chains resulting in a significant strain on the global supply of raw materials for the biopharmaceutical industry. As a result, it has become more critical than ever for raw materials suppliers to be agile in response to rapidly-changing expectations in customization, speed, and delivery.

As a manufacturer and global distributor of critical raw materials and ingredients for the life science industry for over 75 years, Actylis (formerly Aceto) knows the importance of a flexible and reliable approach to creating and supplying custom materials that will enable biopharmaceutical developers to rapidly achieve their commercialization goals. We focus on four key areas to ensure our customers get a best-in-class service from us:

Customizing raw materials and lowering impurities

Customization in biopharmaceuticals usually comes into play when standard excipients with slightly different purity profiles are required. For example, because of the nature and safety concerns of biopharmaceuticals, excipients may be required with low bioburden and minimal endotoxin levels. Additionally, many customers require these excipients in smaller quantities packed in batch specific packaging to minimize risk and waste

Many large-scale raw material suppliers are not set up to deliver niche customization requests. Instead, their business model requires the production of standard materials at scale in order to be profitable.

Against this backdrop, responsive and flexible raw materials suppliers like Actylis are of immense value to many developers in the industry. We can accommodate additional GMP manufacturing steps, while also bringing down the impurity levels and providing the necessary support to customers in their development journey from R&D to clinical and commercial phases.

Addressing supply chain issues with a hybrid approach

The global supply chain challenges are causing a significant slowdown in raw material distribution and this is set to continue. Under these circumstances, Actylis has been able to take advantage of its hybrid model by providing both manufacturing and sourcing options so that our clients have access to the most appropriate solution in the best time frame. We can offer a variety of options to customers and we work closely with them to choose the one that best suits their needs at that time.

Actylis has manufacturing plants in North America, Europe and India, and sourcing hubs in China, the US and Europe (amongst others), making it possible for our clients to pick a source of supply that works best for their drug development path.

Resolving capacity constraints

Many drug manufacturers are now facing capacity constraints as they continue to expand. Some find themselves struggling to maintain their capacity to manufacture finished product as a significant portion of their footprint may be needed for in-house buffer manufacture. Especially for a global company, this balancing of resources and infrastructure may not be feasible across a network of sites.

This is where an agile raw material supplier can play a key role - Actylis can provide the option of outsourcing GMP buffers, process solutions and CIP solutions on a global level, because of our network of manufacturing and sourcing sites in Europe, North America, and Asia. With these options easily accessible from any part of our network, developers can confidently ease their capacity constraints, and focus more facility space to their core business.

A truly agile supplier

To become a truly agile supplier, Actylis invested heavily to understand customer needs and we continue to do so through our customer-centric approach. This has enabled us to truly connect with the challenges that our customers face, whether it’s product-, quality-, or regulation-related. We remain focused on ensuring that we are, at all times, ready to provide optimal raw material solutions for our customers, whatever the challenge and wherever it may be in the world.