Skyepharma transformation to center of excellence for pharmaceutical formulation and development

Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, France: – Oral dosage specialist Skyepharma Productions S.A.S. (Skyepharma) has announced its commitment to becoming a center of Excellence for product formulation and development in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

This represents the latest milestone in Skyepharma’s journey of transformation into a fully-featured and capable Contract Manufacturing and Development Organization (CDMO) that has been underway since 2016.

Strategic plan

“As a center of excellence, we want to become the go-to partner for pharmaceutical companies needing help from formulation and pharmaceutical development, to full manufacturing and packaging of complex solid forms,” declared Skyepharma President and CEO, David Lescuyer.

Since 2016, Skyepharma has implemented an ambitious strategic plan, placing scientific expertise at the center of its development. This includes staff development with experienced scientists including PhDs, in galenic and analytical development, with supporting long term career development plans to attract and retain talents.

Nurturing talent

R&D staff represents more than 25% of the total Skyepharma workforce.

“We are proud of the career development plans we can offer to our teams. Skyepharma is growing. It is a great source of opportunities for our employees. For this reason, we propose specific mid-to-long-term career programs with personalized coaching,” says Isabelle Cachard, HSE and Human Resources Director.

“To build a Centre of Excellence also requires the introduction of a very specific organizational culture, based on team spirit, collaboration, efficient decision making at workshop level, where the value is created, the empowerment of employees and a “start-up” mindset that allows everyone to be fully involved and express their creativity and motivation,” Mrs Cachard adds.

Partnerships and collaborations

Skyepharma has also set up several academic collaborations to extend its technical and scientific formulation expertise.

This includes the funding a PhD galenic development  thesis student, from Bordeaux University, led by Prof. Pierre Tchoreloff, on compression of press coated tablets (tab in tab), as well as a joint research project with the University of Lyon, headed by Prof. Stéphanie Briançon on microfluidizer technology for nanoencapsulation.

“It is essential to maintain our expertise at the highest scientific level. These collaborations allow us to stay one step ahead of the latest trends and research directions in galenic development, and to be able to offer our customers the widest possible range of high-level expertise, thus supporting them as efficiently as possible,” explains Skyepharma Pharmaceutical Development Director Aline Moulin.

Capital investment

The third key element of the formulation development program is investment in state-of-the-art analytical and manufacturing equipment.

“We are positioned as a key player in pharmaceutical development and manufacturing, and we are taking up this challenge. We already have very positive customers’ feedback on our scientific excellence, agility and reduced time-to-market to support the development of their formulations,“ concludes David Lescuyer.

Since 2016, Skyepharma’s transformation to end-to-end CDMO included re-engineering processes and facilities to support a range of services extending from early-stage development and manufacturing through to final packaging, with particular emphasis on serialization and aggregation.

About Skyepharma Production

Skyepharma Production S.A.S. (Skyepharma) is a specialist CDMO with particular expertise and capabilities in oral solid dosage forms, being a key player in drug development and delivery of oral technologies serving the global pharmaceutical, biotech and consumer health industries.

Skyepharma is the oral business unit of the Vectura Group of companies, an international leader in inhalation and other drug delivery forms.

As an integrated CDMO, the company’s vision is to help solve healthcare industry complexity with a mission to provide a dedicated and results-oriented team to deliver advanced oral dosage services to the healthcare industry through state-of-the-art facilities, scientific expertise and open, transparent relationships. All of this is summed up in its strapline: ‘Expert and Agile CDMO partner for tailor-made solutions’.

The Skyepharma CDMO offer in solid oral dosage formats encompasses the whole value chain, including Formulation Development & Process Design, Analytical Development, Scale-up, Manufacturing, Packaging, Serialization and Aggregation.

Skyepharma also provides a range of support services that help  client companies from early stage development (up to phase III), through scale-up and full commercial manufacturing and packaging to market introduction, including controlled substance handling, QbD methodology (FMEA, FTA, DOE), Troubleshooting, regulatory services, validation, registration and warehousing services.

More at: https://www.skyepharma.fr/

Resources

Click on Skyepharma – Center of Excellence in Formulation & Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing for more information.