Partnering On Patient Needs With DSM-Firmenich's George Mihov And Lukasz Koroniak

Principal Scientist George Mihov and Global Biomaterials Director Lukasz Koroniak from DSM-Firmenich join Supplier Horizons host Tom von Gunden to discuss partnering with pharma on formulation development. Among the topics covered are translational research, materials development, and complex molecules required for biologic-based therapies.

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Episode Transcript

Tom von Gunden, Chief Editor, Drug Delivery Leader:

Welcome to another episode of Supplier Horizons, the series in which we hear from leading thinkers at companies that serve the biopharmaceutical industry. My name is Tom von Gunden, Chief Editor and Community Director at Drug Delivery Leader and your host for this series. Today, I am joined by two representatives from DSM-Firmenich, who address biomedical needs. And those folks joining me today are Principal Scientist George Mihov, PhD, and Global Biomaterials Director Lukasz Koroniak.

All right. Well, let's get started. So, we're here to talk about innovations and advancements that can contribute to benefits in drug delivery to patients. So, I'll just start with a very high-level question: As it sits today, where do you see the greatest drivers and opportunities for advancements and innovations in drug delivery and benefits to patients?

George Mihov, Principal Scientist, DSM-Firmenich:

[In] drug delivery, the patient is always in the center. We might be improving the efficacy of the drug. We might be eliminating the side effects or reducing the frequency of administration, which also brings patient benefit. But we are always working, from start to finish, thinking about the patient benefit.

Lukasz Koroniak, Global Biomaterials Director, DSM-Firmenich:

Furthermore, to add to George’s points, we also understand challenges that came out in the market in recent years, challenges associated with supply chain shortages. The cutting-edge solutions that we are developing, and supporting our partners in developing, offer the possibility of reducing the doses of the APIs that are used in the final product. Therefore, enabling more products to be produced from similar amounts of the APIs.

And since you mentioned partnering, I'm going to move straight into a question about the ecosystem in which your organization works. Thinking of all the partners and the organizations that are involved with things you're involved with to get therapies and benefits out to patients, how does that typically work, at a high level? How do those partners come together and contribute to the common good of the work?

Koroniak: So, we work [within] what we refer to as a hybrid model. We do invest in our internal developments, what we refer to as concept products that we develop ourselves, also generating data. That data is used to attract partners from the pharma side that understand how we can support their unmet needs in development of a next generation of drug delivery therapies.

After initial engagements with an agreement on a project, we work very closely with our partners from pharma. The key for us is actually partnership, to leverage the knowledge that our partners bring:  knowledge on the market needs, knowledge on the clinical environment, knowledge on the regulatory needs, [and knowledge on] the technical needs. And we support these by offering our end, which is focused on formulation development and utilizing our differentiating materials portfolio to together develop next-generation products.

As you look out over the horizon of advancements and innovations that may be coming, what are some of the challenges that will need to be addressed: Barriers to overcome, problems to be solved, questions to be answered, when it comes to making those advancements and innovations that will bring benefit to patients?

Mihov: So, the challenges are what we start with. Actually, the challenges are what we convert to opportunities. Of course, in the course of our work, there are many challenges related to finding the right materials, formulations, [and] processing. But if I have to highlight one, it is the translation: translation research between in vitro and in vivo, and in vivo to in vivo for the final form.

Koroniak: And from the market perspective, the challenges in development of the next generation of drug delivery therapies are related to a switch to different assets that our pharma partners are developing to address the challenges. These assets are no longer exclusive to small molecule assets. Our pharma partners are bringing biologics and even more complex molecules into development and into market.

The key, from our side, is to understand the requirements that these new assets bring to the table [and then move to] developing materials, developing capabilities that can support activities utilizing these new assets coming from our pharma partners.

And as those advances make their way into the market and into the lives of patients, what sorts of benefit sets, what sorts of therapeutic areas, perhaps, or patient needs, will some of these address [such] that we’ll be able to see different results in those patients’ lives down the road?

Mihov: We’ve seen many successes. Sometimes they come almost unnoticeable. Sometimes they come as very significant. A good example was the Covid crisis when the delivery of RNA became a solution. And now it's explored in many other therapeutic areas. Although always, when successes come, they're helping the well-being of the patients.

Well, thank you for the insight into that, George. Lukasz, is there anything you want to add in terms of the view of the horizon?

Koroniak: Yes, thank you, Tom. The ultimate goal is to come full circle. We start with the patient, understanding the needs on the patient side, the unmet needs in the current therapies. We invest in the generation of data — that being in vitro data, also translational data — because this is the type of information that our partners are looking for.

We partner and we work on developing a new, next generation of therapy. The ultimate goal is to come back to the patient, to bring to the market a new therapy that results in less frequent administration — that being in the form of an injection or implantation — resulting in much less side effects and complications, but also enabling better compliance of the patient that is struggling with the chronic disease, and overall leading to much better outcomes associated with the new therapy.

That's great insight. I want to thank you, George and Lukasz, for joining me on an episode of Supplier Horizons. And I invite our audience to join us again next time. Thanks, everyone.