DCAT Week ’18, organized by the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association, a non-profit, member-supported, global business development association, was held March 19-22, at the InterContinental Bay Hotel in New York. 

A new program to DCAT Week called “Executive Insights” featured on-stage interviews with leading pharmaceutical executives to provide their views on the key drivers influencing pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturing and supply. Some of the issues that were addressed during the sessions were:

• How is global manufacturing competitiveness influencing supply strategies, and what are major risk factors?
• What are the key issues influencing make-versus-buy decisions?
• How are manufacturing strategies for small molecules and biologics evolving? 
• What are optimal approaches for managing supply of lower-volume drugs?
• What role will continuous manufacturing have in the near- and long-term?

Notably, during the Executive Insights II: Manufacturing and Supply session, Remo Colarusso, Vice President, Janssen Supply Chain at Johnson & Johnson, gave his insight on some of the major challenges in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Colarusso, who leads more than 10,000 employees that work in nearly 20 of Johnson & Johnson’s sites globally, says that a lot has changed during his more than 30 years in the industry. Specifically, he says in the last five to ten years, there has been an increasing acceleration of products coming to the market. The challenge with that, according to him, is that the expertise needed to keep up is changing, which means new infrastructure must must be invested in to manage the new pipelines.  

In terms of new trends, Colarusso says they are leaning towards personalized medicine, and along with that, a huge amount of pressure on having the lowest price possible. This big focus on cost brings forth another trend, which is the management of larger volumes in a company’s portfolio while being cost competitive; something that was not always the main focus for companies in the past, and adds a huge leg onto the process as a whole.

With the cost consciousness trend in manufacturing pharmaceutical products, comes the same trend in creating the new facilities to house the processes. New facilities are now being designed not only for maximum capacity, but for the minimum cost. One method companies are using to cut facility costs is having them classified as a controlled space, instead of a classified space. This lowers the overall cost, while keeping the facilities compliant and up to standards.

Another trend Colarusso says is on the rise, which we are seeing all across the pharmaceutical industry, is working with third party CMO partners. Outsourcing work like this helps companies both commoditize and develop strategic partnerships with people that have the capacity to complete a variety of services that the company may not have. 

The main takeaways from Remo Colarusso’s insights are that new levels of volume, along with cost conciousness, are two of the largest challenges that were created as part of the continued upward growth in the manufacturing industry. 

---

As vice president of the supply chain business unit at Janssen, Remo Colarusso is responsible for the global manufacturing and

supply management of all biopharmaceutical brands and leads more than 10,000 staff members working in 18 pharmaceutical, biologic, and chemical manufacturing sites globally. He has more than 30 years of biotech and pharmaceutical supply-chain experience in the areas of manufacturing, engineering, project management, strategy, and Lean/Six Sigma, and has been with Johnson & Johnson for 29 years. Prior to his current role, Colarusso was head of Pharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing Sciences (PDMS) in the Janssen R&D Operations business unit.