Tuesday November 27 2012 | the times
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Business Insight Commercial report: Life Technologies
The Scottish know-how at Life Technologies is backed with an investment to expand production – and bring a world-class granulated product to global markets, discovers Kenny Kemp
Typically, our customers work in major universities or hospitals where they are doing research around the world
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cotland’s expertise in advanced manufacturing in the sphere of life science has been given a massive vote of confidence by Life Technologies. The company’s unique products are at the heart of the globallyexpanding field of biotechnology, with a new granulated offering — described as being similar in texture to instant coffee — about to be produced in Renfrewshire. One of Life Technologies’ major brands, GIBCO®, has a history stretching back 50 years when the Grand Island Biological Company started in New York. GIBCO®’s cell culture media products have been manufactured in Scotland in Renfrewshire for more than 40 years. Life Technologies is listed on NASDAQ, with GIBCO® remaining a central part of its heritage. In April, Life Technologies announced a £12 million expansion of the existing manufacturing facilities at Inchinnan. The investment will meet the rising demand for GIBCO® cell culture products and allows the manufacture of a new proprietary Advanced Granulated Technology under the GIBCO® brand. GIBCO® is a long-standing and respected brand. “GIBCO® is cell culture media: this is the food that scientists use to grow their cells,” said Peter Silvester, President of Life Technologies, EMEA. He is responsible for 2,000 employees and more than one billion dollars of business across Europe, Middle East, Africa and the CIS. “There are several origins for the cells that scientists use. They could be animal or plant cells. Many modern drugs are biological and are synthesised using cultured cells like a factory. You have to cultivate and grow them; we provide the nutrients or media to grow these cells,” he said. There is internal excitement about the Advanced Granulation Technology, which has been described as the “instant coffee” for cell culture media. “It’s a way of processing the media so you don’t have to ship tens of thousands of litres of liquids around the world. You can produce a sachet or a bag of the media equivalent of granulated coffee. It is very easy for pharmaceutical companies to reconstitute or re-dissolve. It’s easier for us to ship around the world.” In addition to GIBCO® cell culture products, Life Technologies has a vast portfolio that includes class-leading DNA Forensics products. If you can imagine an episode of the hugely successful American television series CSI, then you will see the forensic scientist using an array of instruments and technologies to identify DNA. In reality, it is likely to be a Life Technologies product. “The majority of the DNA forensics that are performed around the world is done using Life Technologies reagents. For example, we are the major provider to
Inchinnan is Life Technologies’ European headquarters and hub of operations — and it employs more than 500 people there
Scotland wakes up to instant success most of the world’s police forces,” said Mr Silvester. But it is highly significant that Life Technologies has made a strong commitment to its Scottish operations, employing more than 500 people. Inchinnan is the European headquarters and the hub of its operations. Aside from the biology and manufacturing, Life Technologies has about 100 European shared financial services, IT support and sales and marketing administration staff based in Renfrewshire. There are more than 100 employees directly involved in sterile manufacturing, with Life Technologies training most of the staff. Mr Silvester, who has more than 20 years’ experience in the life sciences industry, 14 of those with Life Technologies, said: “We have a very talented, loyal, experienced and flexible workforce here. Frankly, every time we looked at the different international options for where we could expand or produce more efficient services, Scotland has always come out on top.” He said a US corporation such as Life Technologies is happy to invest when there is a track record of success. For Life Technologies, based in California, it was an easy decision to invest in the team, and this was helped by Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International. “Scottish Enterprise also played a key supporting role in our decision to invest more in Renfrewshire. We’re grateful to
Peter Silvester highlights a loyal, talented workforce
them. The company is willing to place a bet on the employees we have here. Many have been here for a long time and are a high-performing team,” he said. There are three sides to the business: the core is the life sciences research business, which supports researchers around the region who are performing research in areas such as cancer, regenerative medicine and stem cells. “Typically, our customers work in major universities or hospitals, doing research around the world,” he said. The second part of the business is the Applied Sciences, such as DNA forensics and Bioproduction. The company has more than 50,000 products for research, molecular medicine and diagnostics, stem cell-based therapies, forensics, food safety and animal health. Its brands in scientific research including: GIBCO®, Ion Torrent™, Applied Biosystems™, Invitrogen™, Ambion®, Molecular Probes®, Novex® and TaqMan®. Many years ago, bovine serum from horses, cows, sheep and goats were used to grow essential nutrients but more precision is now required for today’s drug testing and control of the ingredients going into production is critical. One of Life Technologies’ innovations has been to move away from the reliance on biological bovine serum and move to a more precise, chemically-defined media. “It is about moving away from biological media to a very specifically defined
media where you know where everything has come from,” he said. The third aspect is Medical Science, where kits are used to identify diseases in commercial animals, pets and humans. Life Technologies has been able to dramatically shorten the time required to obtain results in this area. As an example, the company provided the food testing kits for the athletes during the London 2012 Olympics, while in May 2011, its benchtop DNA sequencing instrument, the PGM, was used to detect the strain of a serious E.coli outbreak in Germany. It affected more than 3,000 people and resulted in more than 50 deaths. “The latest DNA sequencing technology was used to identify the cause of the outbreak. Typically, the work on this happens a month after the outbreak, but we were able to work with scientists at Munster University in Germany to identify the cause of the bug while it was on-going. It made a huge difference.” This represents how fast DNA sequencing technology has moved forward and can be used in modern health scares. “The team came together to collaborate with the German scientists to make sure we had the equipment and the reagents that they needed. It allowed them to do the identification as quickly as possible to save lives,” said Mr Silvester. Life Technologies employs more than 10,000 people worldwide, has customers in more than 160 countries, more than 4,000 patents and exclusive licenses and sales of £2.4 billion in 2011. The company has been working to integrate with the local universities, especially the University of Glasgow, and has offered laboratory and demonstration space for graduate and post graduate research. It is also looking at developing courses with the university. “We have state-of-the-art facility and we can bring researchers and students in to show them our equipment and train them on some of the core microbiology and cell culturing techniques.” Coupled with this, the company has been working with Health Sciences Scotland and Glasgow University on an innovation centre, supported by the Scottish Funding Council. The pending application is to create a multi-million pound stratified medicine centre bringing together the NHS, industry and academics from across Scotland. “It’s a great example of how we can leverage our presence here and get more involved with the academic community and broader scientific community. It’s where Scotland can take the lead.” DNA science research has become increasingly glamorous for young people and Life Technologies has been working with local schools to explain it. “We have been doing work with school children and young people, including a forensic story revolving around Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” said Mr Silvester, “to educate and inspire the next generation about this exciting science and the basics of DNA forensics.”