Aesica Pharmaceuticals manufactures pharmaceuticals on behalf of other drug companies; they are contract developers and manufacturers of pharmaceuticals.
So why do they have an Innovation Board? Don’t they just follow recipes and do as they are told?
The group that now operates as Aesica’s Formulation Development Business Unit was previously R5 Pharmaceuticals. Paul Titley founded R5 Pharmaceuticals in 2006 to provide formulation development, analytical chemistry and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) services to the global biotech and pharmaceutical industry. The company was doing very nicely when it was acquired by Aesica in June 2010.
This proves the importance of development to Aesica and shows that contract developers such as them don’t only follow recipes; they also innovate to make manufacturing cheaper.
Cleaner, greener, safer
Cleaner manufacturing is cheaper, greener manufacturing is cheaper; safer is cheaper – as Paul Titley and Barrie Rhodes said to me when we chatted last week. Aesica is on the lookout for inventors and researchers with partly proven good ideas to partner with them. As a company they are able to evaluate the usability, the practicality of such ideas, and they are able to provide a full proving ground.
They are always looking for innovative ideas and it would be great if people came to them with ideas. But they don’t.
Where do they look for these inventions?
They look at what other people use; other manufacturers and pharma and biotech companies, but not just that. They don’t expect pharmaceutical innovation to only come from pharmaceutical sources. For instance at present they are using hot melt methods that arise in a material science department to improve pharmaceutical drug delivery systems. They can take ideas from food and agriculture – even from science fiction – into pharmaceutics.
Barry and Paul search Open Innovation Forums, trade shows and research.
They don’t know what we are looking for if they attend a conference or a trade show. What they come back with usually bears no resemblance to what they expected to and the justification given on the forms that are submitted to management.
There are problems in formulation…. where are the solutions? They are keenly aware of the processes that are in use in the plant and in the challenges, the areas which are expensive. A small percentage of their annual turnover is a significant number so even small changes, which deliver incremental improvements, are highly sought after.
Open innovation websites and forums are where people list innovations that they are making available outside their own companies and organisations. These provide a fertile list of innovations that cross link between fields.
Ideas come from all kinds of people.
…. Inventors! Researchers! What else can you do with your research, your good ideas?
A piece of research may be aiming to answer one question, have a specific single outcome. There is no telling what people outside your field can make of your invention – if they can understand it. Research results which are written with only one audience – the researchers academic peers – in mind can be very dense, impenetrable. This can be rewritten to be meaningful to those outside the fold.
Someone has an invention; what then? Can you come to someone like Aesica, impress them and expect a wad of cash?
The inventor/researcher has the know-how and a lot of it is tacit knowledge; Aesica sees no point in them just buying it. The want to share the risk of commercialisation, let it be a partnering. The researcher / inventor keeps the know-how, and you work together.