L-R : Jean Paul Mangeoolle ,  MS Mahadevan, Daniel Stamm & Julian Alonso

Millipore is a 50-year old bioscience company that is focused on tools and products that help the development and production of new therapeutic drugs. Headquartered in Billerica, USA, it offers solutions to the life science research, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Millipore employs 4,200 people in 10 manufacturing plants and has over 31 offices around the world. And it has been present in India for the last 15 years as a JV company. India is a very important destination for Millipore and its global executives have been visiting the country very regularly. In an exclusive interview with BioSpectrum, Jean Paul Mangeoolle, vice president, worldwide field operations, BioPharmaceutical Division, Millipore Corp.; Julian Alonso, director, Millipore India; Daniel Stamm, general manager, Europe, BioPharmaceutical Division; MS Mahadevan, general manager, BioPharmaceutical Division, Millipore India and share their thoughts on the plans for India as well as emerging technology trends.

Biotech is a very important sector for Millipore. Why is it so and what is the overall focus of Millipore?

The biopharma division in by far the biggest division. We are focused on three key market segments. The core pharmaceutical industry, which is NDDS and NCEs, the plasma and vaccines industry, which is kind of between the core pharma and biotech industry, using some of the biotech processes, although in a much smaller way. Then the biotech industry, which is recombinant vaccines, the monoclonal antibodies, etc. Clearly, Millipore is investing today in the biotech sector. This is because the biotech industry is a very separation intensive process.

Does that hold good for India too?

The transpose of our global strategy holds good for India too. There is not much difference. We do cover the core pharma accounts as this still represents a very large part of our business. But the developments and investments are made to respond to the demands of the biotech industry. Biotech is in a very early stage in India. In this business, if you do not play very early, then you cannot gain in the latter stages. So the latest developments you have seen in India are the application labs, the process development plans, the verification labs, etc. These have been set up in compliance with the global standards.

You have three key business units? How are these focused?

We have lab water, life science, and biopharma units. Lab water makes laboratory equipment for purification of water. Life science makes products for research in the labs and biopharma makes products, which are used in manufacturing, production and control of drug substances. Biopharma would easily be three-fourth of the total size. Millipore was $800 million in revenues in 2003.

In Europe and the US you have a strong manufacturing base. What is the scene in Asia Pacific?

There is not much manufacturing in Asia. We have some manufacturing in India. We are in a very early stage strategy of sourcing for products from India. The level of suppliers’ service we can get is increasing and we are looking at procuring more products from India. But we do not have full-fledged manufacturing operations from India.

What is your India strategy?

The biopharmaceuticals business is focusing on core pharma applications, the process and quality control applications. We are focusing on plasma, vaccines, and the so called biotech applications (not as sophisticated as the real biotech like monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins). Where are our dollars coming from? Obviously from the core pharma as the biotech sector is just kicking off. We know that it coming. At the moment this is not generating business yet.

The strategy in terms of investment is with respect to the biotech industry. We have a verification lab, application lab, process development lab; we are hiring people and several global executives visit India regularly to support the Indian business. All this has been in view to educate and build awareness. This is important, as classical pharma applications are not as scientific as biotech applications. One may not need the same level of science and support in the former.

Biotech as a business is potentially lucrative. We continue to support the classical pharma. The revenues generated through this are invested into developing biotech resources. It is a long-term strategy. Honestly, 5-10 years from now, we will see the benefits of making investments into biotech.

We are focusing only on our competency by not moving into providing customers with things that they should not buy from us. In a developing market like India, there is a tendency for a customer to come to Millipore and say do everything for us. There are some things we do well and some, which we don’t. We want to focus on what we do well. We want our resources to be used to support separation technology and help the customer use the applications effectively.

How do you position yourself? A product company or a solutions and support company?

We are definitely a technology-solutions company. Today, it is given that the products have to be of very high quality. We are not the only player in the market. The only way to differentiate in the biotech segment is by adding value to the product. There is a need for that in the market place. The customer today has to be standards and regulatory complaint. We can help the customer in deciding a process. The process is very important. We also know how processes are transferred from one site. We help seamless transition. The customer is expecting more than the catalogs and prices. They are looking for advice.

Which are the technologies that will bring you business tomorrow?

Millipore technology is used for a wide range of applications, from protein sample preparation to vaccine sterilization to monoclonal antibody production. Recent new products include new versions of MultiScreen membrane-based multi-well plates for molecular biology applications, and Opticap cartridges for biotechnology drug manufacturing. Millipore lab water systems are essential to research and analytical laboratory work worldwide.

If you see, we are working on the different steps of the process. You have an upstream part, where the media is prepared to grow bacteria, mammalian cells, etc. in the fermentor. Then you have the down stream part where you purify down to molecular level and final sterile filtration of the end product. One trend, we see in the market is disposable manufacturing. The trend now is to go for plastic products instead of using stainless steel installations, tubings, and containers. This includes filters and filter housings too.

Another area is in quality control. We are looking at faster detection of contamination. Today, it takes two to three days to let the bacteria grow before we get the results. We are looking at methods that give that result much faster. This is called as rapid microbiology and that is the field we are in and you will see newer products.

The third one is the more general one. We bring new membranes to the market place that outperform the actual products in terms of throughput, flow rate. This improves the economy of a process to make it shorten. There are other fields like virus removal. Millipore is looking at that step. Further, we are looking at mechanical retention of a membrane etc.

Millipore has looked at acquisition or alliances to move fast into the market place. For example, in January Millipore and HyClone Laboratories announced the formation of a bioprocessing alliance. HyClone is a global leader in cell culture consumables and disposable bioprocess liquid containment products and a subsidiary of Fisher Scientific International Inc. The alliance will help combine the critical elements required for value-added disposable manufacturing solutions. Biopharmaceutical manufacturers will have one supplier contact for the design, development, and validation support of disposable manufacturing systems combining HyClone bioprocess containers with various Millipore disposable separation products.

Ch. Srinivas Rao and Rolly Dureha

Next Page : Thermo Electron ships its 100th Finnigan LTQ to INCAPS