Enterprise Sponsor: Italy
Olon, one of That's Nice's Road to 2021 sponsors, discusses how the company is innovating to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond to face the future of healthcare.
Innovation is a key focus for Olon and is reflected in both the mission and vision: Olon aims to create new ideas and devise pathways to deliver prompt and sustainable solutions for the life science industry and innovate new ways to improve the health of all human beings. The development of innovative and original technology platforms is one of our main drivers as a CDMO supplying APIs to pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
Olon values people, expertise, and dedication, and constantly invests in new and different technologies, as well as its existing resources. To remain innovative, Olon executes training and improvement programs in R&D and other important technical areas.
Innovation — in terms of optimization and improvement of processes — is key to the services that Olon always provides to its customers. Olon continues to invest in its capabilities for chemical synthesis, fermentation, and biologics. One innovation that is particularly crucial to Olon going forward is the adoption of continuous rather than batch processing for API manufacturing. This transition will have a significant impact on how the company does business, from R&D to quality, regulatory, and manufacturing.
Olon has been asked to make substantial contributions toward the global health efforts to contain Covid-19.
Olon is also closely eyeing innovations in genomic mapping that can result in increasing the selectivity of high-potency drugs. Such results can impact both formulation and production, leading to more tailored, personalized drugs for smaller patient groups. This transition to personalized medicine will mean an increase in the development and manufacture of smaller-volume drugs, which will, in turn, influence the size of the reactors that are required. Smaller-volume manufacturing will have an impact on pricing, as development costs will increase as they are divided among fewer, more select patients.
Olon is looking to increase its high-containment capabilities with the goal of taking on a greater number of highly potent API (HPAPI) projects. Owing to the considerable potential of these products, Olon is carefully weighing short- and longterm impacts on the development process to find ways to contain potential cost increases resulting from investments in new capabilities.
Innovating During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown of some supplier countries has underscored the criticality of a robust supply chain. Olon is working to minimize the impact on disruptions from low-cost countries, with the goal of maintaining sufficient diversification of supply to avoid production interruptions, a goal that existed prior to the current crisis.
Olon has been asked to make substantial contributions toward the global health efforts to contain COVID-19. Olon was selected by three innovator companies to produce new experimental antiviral drugs, and all three are currently in advanced clinical trials phases. The company is excited about the opportunity to contribute in such a meaningful way during this challenging period.
