What's fueling our growth?
by Timothy S. Oostdyk, Ph.D., Chairman, Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories; Group Senior Vice President, Eurofins BioPharma Product Testing Group
This year Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories celebrates over 55 years of strong performance in delivering an outstanding service experience to our clients. With quality remaining as the continual driver, our strategic client relationships have fueled our growth and success. I am thrilled to report that in 2017 we are poised to begin our 13th and largest building expansion in the history of our Lancaster campus. And we are also initiating significant expansions of our Eurofins BioPharma Product Testing laboratories in Ireland and Munich. And on the opposite page, you can read about our recently completed state-of-the- art GMP Storage building in Lancaster to further enhance services to our Bio/Pharmaceutical and Medical Device clients.
As we strive to provide innovative, timely and cost effective scientific solutions to help our customers better manage the drug development process, we continually examine areas where we can grow with our clients and add value to our relationships. As we are all well aware, the bio/pharmaceutical development pipeline is extremely robust, not only with traditional products such as monoclonal antibodies, but also with newer modalities such as gene and cell therapies, mRNA, antisense, antibody drug conjugates, and fusion proteins. Further, promising clinical results, combined with accelerated regulatory pathways, have shortened development timelines of some novel drugs for the treatment of rare and once incurable diseases. In response, we have expanded our technical expertise and depth of capacity.
Currently, we are seeing increased demand to support the testing around supply chain management for both R&D and manufacturing. This encompasses a multitude of services including support for cell lines, critical reagents, media components, reference materials, expanded outsourcing of raw materials, and the complete range of storage and testing for drug substance and drug product for both small molecules and biologics.
Further, areas such as trace metals, residual impurities and extractables & leachables continue to be strong growth areas as demand continues to ramp up due to more sophisticated delivery technologies and new requirements going into effect as early as 2018. And in response to increased container testing requests as regulations for this testing have evolved, we continue to invest and expand in all the latest container testing technologies.
Our flexible service models, including PSS and FTE, continue to flourish as clients pursue external resources which are dedicated to and fully aligned with their own processes and most importantly are flexible in response to their ever changing needs. And now we are seeing more interest earlier in the drug development pipeline as well.
Driven by US market needs, as well as a heightened focus on drug delivery, we’ve expanded and formalized our medical device testing services. Leveraging our more than 20 years of experience in medical device testing, we established Eurofins Medical Device Testing to provide comprehensive services --from implants and instruments, to single-use and combination products, as well as active electronic devices--clients receive the optimal testing strategy for all types of class I, II and III medical devices, both in the US and Europe.
None of our success is possible without our highly qualified scientists and leaders, and therefore we invest heavily in training, career development and growth. With one of the lowest turnover rates in the industry, clients enjoy working with the same people year after year as their careers advance within our organization. We are also very excited earlier this past year to bring a new President in to lead the Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories organization. Neal Salerno joined us with a wealth of executive experience in a number of regulated industries. Neal’s extensive background in leading complex and multi-site operations, along with extensive experience in Lean and process optimization, have brought a strong dynamic to complement and enhance the talent and perspective of our leadership team. I am extremely pleased to have Neal on board to lead this next phase of growth and expansion of the Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories business.
Clearly it is exciting times for the entire biopharmaceutical industry, as well as for Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories and the broader Eurofins BioPharma Product Testing group. I think you will agree that working in our industry is both enriching and challenging, and every day brings new dynamics. My commitment to you is that we will continually invest in our network and platform to provide the most comprehensive services at the highest quality available. And as requirements become more complex, and expectations around quality become ever heightened, we will work extremely hard to stay ahead of the curve to serve you.
Thank you for your business, and for the trust you place in us.