To alternate the stories about machines, collaborations, and our new and improved commercial-scale production line with a human touch, we’ve interviewed some of our staff. They are the people who drive this innovation and therefore, they deserve a spotlight! Can you just imagine how unique this whole project is to them? In this episode, we’d like you to meet Joost Cornelissen, Business Development Manager at BioConnection. Read on to find out how he is experiencing this unique project.
– What is your position?
As a Business Development Manager, I identify and attract new customers. My main focus is to attract new customers and support them with the production of drug products for their clinical trials and/ or for their commercial (market) purposes. I provide and give my customers access to a highly-skilled drug product support team and state-of-the-art manufacturing resources.
– What is or will be your role in the expansion with a new production line?
Our new production line with enhanced capacity is a great opportunity for me to assist our clinical customers towards large scale commercial manufacturing. We identify companies when they are basically a startup and we can guide these companies during their growth. It is great that I can now offer my customers more options for production on a bigger scale.
– What will be a special moment for you regarding this project?
At BioConnection, we are facing a lot of positive challenges and activities at the moment. When the new production line is finally validated and approved by the authorities, this would prove that we have built something really good. This underlines the enthusiasm and experience of the BioConnection team. I am very proud of that.
– What are you looking forward to most?
For me, the cherry on the cake is the production of the first GMP batch on our new production line, which is anticipated for April next year.
– What is most important to you about the project?
Expanding our production capacity gives me the opportunity to serve our customers even better as we can now support customers from their early-stage clinical trial projects to the commercial phase. So the most important thing for me is that we can serve more customers longer because they have several options to choose from: from a manual fill of fewer than 1,000 vials per batch up to commercial productions of several million vials per year.
– What added value do you think BioConnection will gain from the expansion?
We keep a close eye on customer needs and market trends. A few years ago, we saw that there is not only increasing demand for our current 50L scale of production but also for larger production scales. The expansion of our production capacity up to 500L scale means that BioConnection can respond now much better to the market and the demands of customers.
– What will be the biggest challenge for you personally?
The global manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical industry is thin. My biggest challenge is to convince customers to reserve their production slots in a timely manner. Thus, the sooner the entire manufacturing process is planned, the more value I can create for my customer.