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Newsletter No. 17 November 2009 Members of the Eden team will be at the following events over the coming months: Attending: 8-10 December 2009 Antibody Engineering & Immunotherapeutics San Diego, CA To request a meeting with Michael Faughnan click here. Attending: 14-15 December 2009 Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing and Development Summit San Francisco, CA To request a meeting with Derek Ellison click here. Exhibiting: 11-15 January 2010 PepTalk 2010 San Diego, CA Come and visit us at our stand #12. To set up a meeting with Michael Faughnan or Andrew Clutterbuck please click here. Presenting: 18-19 January 2010 BioEcosse 2010 Glasgow Characterisation of Biologics 2010. Dr Anita Bate, CSO will present “From Bench to Manufacturing. How process optimisation and scale up can affect product quality”. If you would like to set up a meeting please contact Jo. Attending: 25-27 January 2010 Vaccine Forum Washington, DC To request a meeting with Roger Lias click here. For a full list of events we will be attending visit the events page. October saw the glitterati of the bioprocessing world (if indeed there can be such) shimmer around the bright lights of Raleigh’s impressive conference centre. According to the red circled stickers on the doors there was only one item prohibited in the conference centre - a firearm. Some visitors were slightly uneasy at the idea that someone thought the good citizens of North Carolina would need a reminder that an international conference centre wasn’t a handgun friendly destination but I guess it’s one of those minor cultural differences that makes travel interesting! The adjoining Marriot hotel lobby was a riot of beige and angular sofas. The bar was so vast that even Roger’s expense account struggled with buying drinks for everyone... The first challenge was to set up the stand. If you aren’t familiar with the complex practices involved in shipping several crates of highly breakable furniture through US customs, getting it back after it’s been wrongly impounded, trying to find it at the conference centre, trying to get the assigned unionised labour off their mandatory coffee breaks long enough to follow the assembly instructions - you haven’t lived. It makes producing a recombinant protein look like child’s play. On this trip we had to put up with stand assembly ineptitude of the highest order. Were we laughing when the half assembled stand toppled over crushing the three behind us? No. Were we weeping tears of frustration when we were told, after 8 hours of toil and pain, that due to new exhibition hall rules we couldn’t set it up in the correct orientation and had to start again? Oh yes... There were several restaurants recommended in the BPI organisers guide. On the first night we boldly and somewhat unimaginatively opted for the closest - the elegantly and sensitively named ‘The Pit’. It was actually very good - excellent value and tasty food. To quote the web site “Legendary Pitmaster, Ed Mitchell, proudly serves authentic whole-hog, pit-cooked barbecue at the Pit in downtown Raleigh’s Warehouse District. A celebration of all of the great culinary offerings of the Old North State, with a modern twist”. I would like to confirm, for the record, that I did indeed witness three sweating kitchen staff trying to heave a very blackened and smoking whole pig carcass onto a preparation table. Not one for the faint hearted vegetarian... I confess that I’m not well versed in the BBQ pig flesh arena in general but the ribs were amongst the best that I’ve ever had. Superb drinking was found at the Flying saucer - over 200 beers on the menu, listed under state and country of origin. After some particularly arduous tasting, and chatting up of the waitresses, I can vouch that quite a lot of them were very good. We were particularly impressed with the UFO club. You pay $18 to join and when you buy your two hundredth beer you get a party and your name, with slogan, printed onto a plate (saucer) which is stuck onto the ceiling. My favourite slogan was “I’m just pleased she let me finish”. Funny, and yet poignant... Derek Ellison This quarter has been very busy for the team with new projects commencing, a large number of site visits from international clients and a big recruitment drive – check out the ‘What’s going on’ section for more information. Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter, and as always we welcome any feedback. By many accounts the biotechnology industry has weathered the storm created by the global financial crisis reasonably well and, while there have undoubtedly been some casualties, we are seeing new financing and partnership deals being announced on a daily basis and companies are pushing forward with their biopharmaceutical development plans. Judging by the continued strong interest in Eden Biodesign’s services and requests for proposals being received from clients throughout the world, it appears that a great deal of planning is underway for 2010. Several new projects are up and running at our licensed cGMP facilities and we have been very pleased to be able to announce recently (see press release) that we are working with Biotecnol SA (Portugal) to manufacture Cardiotrophin-1 for potential use in certain liver indications. Eden Biodesign’s consultancy practice is also completing assignments in CMC related areas, facility design and cGMP training as far afield as Hong Kong. In addition to working with a very wide range of global clients that access our world class expertise and facilities, we also work hard at maintaining numerous partnerships and other relationships with companies offering state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies and licensed large scale cGMP production capacity so that our clients can benefit from shortened development timelines; highly productive cell lines and strains; high yielding processes; cost-effective production and seamless technology transfer if required. To cope with the continued strong demand for our services, we have been recruiting for a number of roles at our UK facility. Please check the vacancies page on our website for up-to-date positions available. Last month, as part of our attendance at the BioProcess International Conference & Exhibition, Raleigh, NC, we held a promotional event at a National Hockey League game as The Carolina Hurricanes took on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Although the final result was 3-2 to the Penguins it was a very enjoyable evening and a nice opportunity to network with many industry leaders from North America and Europe. Last month, we launched our new website which we hope adds value to our clients with improved functionality allowing you to find the information you need much quicker. For any readers who have not managed to check out the new site please do so when you have a moment - www.edenbiodesign.com. Congratulations to our colleagues (plus partners) at Eden Biodesign, Inc. in North Carolina who took part in the Outer Banks Half-Marathon on November 8. The team did very well with everyone achieving their personal bests. Same time, same place next year guys? And finally, some baby news - congratulations to Kassim (Business Development Manager, Europe) whom many of our readers will know. Kassim’s wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, named Eesa Kolia, born September 16 weighing 7½ lbs. View our latest webcast – Andrew Clutterbuck, Purification Development Team Leader, discusses the challenges facing antibody manufacturers and ways Eden Biodesign can help overcome these obstacles. Nov 10, 2009. Why not read the latest articles to be published? ‘Advancing Vaccine Technology to Combat Global Pandemic Threats’, Andrew Clutterbuck, Nitin Jain and David Simpson. As featured in BioPharm International Supplement, October 2009. Click here to view. This newsletter is prepared by Eden Biodesign and comments and suggestions are most welcome. Please address them to: Johanne Tabern (Tel: +44 (0)151 728 1750) Eden Biodesign National Biomanufacturing Centre, Estuary Banks Estuary Commerce Park, Speke Road, Liverpool L24 8RB www.edenbiodesign.com If you do not wish to receive this newsletter in the future, please email Johanne to be removed from the mailing list.