On track at CPHI Barcelona - The Track Sponsor interviews: Siegfried

In our packed out content sessions at CPHI Barcelona this year we focus on some of the hottest topics coming up in the pharma industry, with each track sponsored by a leading expert in the field. 

Can you please give an overview of Siegfried and what your key priorities are as a company, and what makes you unique? 

Headquartered in Zofingen, Switzerland, Siegfried is a leading CDMO with more than 3,600 employees across 11 production sites in Europe, the USA, and Asia. With our longstanding pharmaceutical and chemical experience, we take innovations to industrial scale.

We offer a comprehensive range of services – from drug substances and product development to registration and manufacturing to packaging and logistics – to help our partners achieve greater value. As a fully integrated pharmaceutical company, Siegfried is one of the few suppliers today that can carry out the development and manufacturing of active ingredients and finished formulated drugs under one roof. This unique combination of know-how and experience sets us apart from our competitors.

You’re the Track sponsor for ‘Next-Gen Biomanufacturing’, can you give us the key takeaways from this track?

Siegfried recently expanded its focus to provide fill-finish services to biologics manufacturers. At our site in Hameln, Germany, we are filling Novavax’ protein-based COVID-19 vaccine Novaxovid, and we were filling BioNTech’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Through these projects, Siegfried demonstrated its ability to solve technologically demanding tasks on short notice and with additional investments in competencies and multi-purpose capacities in Hameln, Siegfried has been able to support a number of customers with development and manufacturing services beyond vaccines.

In addition, Siegfried has recently acquired DINAMIQS, a science-driven CDMO offering end-to-end viral vector manufacturing solutions to accelerate gene-therapy projects from DNA design to commercial scale.

Why is this area particularly important? 

As a global CDMO, our network produces more than 200 FDA approved APIs. We serve more than 500 customers globally, and up to 1 billion people encounter Siegfried products every year. Over 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were manufactured by Siegfried. We expand into new areas such as biomanufacturing because we believe that what we do matters to customers, patients and society, and are committed to manufacturing safe drugs for patients worldwide.

What can we expect to see in the future in Next-Gen Biomanufacturing? 

Though viral vectors are used extensively in cell and gene therapy, the challenges of manufacturing such complex biologics at industrial scale is still a limitation to its broader use. We will see process optimisation used to tackle viral vector manufacturing challenges and help to expedite drug development. DINAMIQS' CEO Eduard Ayuso will speak in detail about this topic in his CPHI session.

How do events like CPHI Barcelona help to accelerate these track fields in the wider pharmaceutical industry?

Coming together and exchanging with both big and small pharmaceutical companies on the latest trends helps to drive innovation.

See more about Siegfried at CPHI Barcelona here.