Alcami, a contract development and manufacturing organization headquartered in North Carolina, is in a period of high growth.
With more than 45 years of experience advancing products through every stage of the development lifecycle, Alcami serves pharmaceutical and biotech companies of all sizes for small molecules and biologics.
Ahead of CDMO Live, we sat down with Kerrie Powell, Senior Vice President of Sales at Alcami Corporation, to understand more about the services that the company offers to clients, and how they help clients to navigate the the fast-changing contract manufacturing landscape in 2024.
Stability in an uncertain world
“Developing a drug is one of the hardest things to do. There are so many moving parts.”
“All of the changes in the industry right now makes people feel uncertain. Alcami wants to offer stability to our clients, offering a breadth of solutions but also a level of service and peace of mind that is beyond their expectations.“ says Kerrie.
“It’s about being responsive, communicating well and really connecting with the client’s needs. We do all of that while delivering good results and products that our clients need, and that will ultimately get to their patients.”
Alcami supports a wide range of clients. “We work with everyone from top ten pharma companies to early stage biotechs. We support clients from clinical stage all the way through commercialisation of their product, so we can provide consistency throughout the whole process. “
The four main services that Alcami offers are:
- Drug Product Manufacturing: Alcami offers formulation development, both sterile fill-finish and oral solid dose manufacturing, packaging and labelling to the highest quality standards.
- Analytical Laboratory Services: A significant portion of Alcami’s business focuses on analytical testing. Whether clients manufacture in-house or work with other partners, Alcami’s robust analytical services provide essential support. Service offerings include a wide range of testing services, from method development and validation to release and stability testing for small and large molecules. The team also provides specialty testing such as extractables and leachables, nitrosamine testing, micro in-use studies and disinfectant efficacy testing.
- Pharma Storage Services: Alcami provides GMP storage solutions, covering a wide range of conditions from ambient storage to cold chain management co-located with key life science hubs.
- Validation and Calibration Teams: Dedicated teams, both in the field and in-house, support clients throughout their product lifecycle.
“Clients want to consolidate vendors by identifying a partner that can take care of their outsourcing needs while maintaining the highest of standards. ” says Kerrie.
“We can support the movement of products through the development life cycle with our broad service offerings while the client is supported by a single project manager and the support of our subject matter experts.”
High Growth and expansion
Alcami is currently in a phase of high growth, investing internally and expanding through strategic acquisitions. The company now has six campuses in the United States.
They are planning further expansion of biologics lab services in Durham and have increased pharma storage capacities in New England. They have recently opened a new facility near their labs in RTP, North Carolina which is able to support the rapidly expanding life science industry in the area.
Alcami also recently acquired Pacific Pharmaceutical Services in Reno, Nevada, which increased their west coast storage services. “As the majority of our clients are in the United States, our new facility provides our west coast clients easy access to our pharma storage services. “
“We recently announced the addition of a new sterile fill-finish line in Charleston, South Carolina. We expanded our biologics testing platform in Durham a year and a half ago allowing us to add redundancy and capacity for testing ongoing in our Wilmington, NC site. In addition, we expanded into standalone analytical testing in support of cell and gene therapy.” says Kerrie.
The importance of agility
At a time of so much change in the industry, Kerrie highlights the importance of being agile and responsive. “This feels like an unprecedented time in the contract manufacturing space. Every day you open the news and see a new acquisition.”
In particular, the sterile fill-finish space has been a particularly hot topic over the last couple of months. “Following some of the announcements that came out, people want to know that we’re going to be able to onboard them, get their product out and keep to their timelines. “
“One of the pain points we hear often from clients is around the backlogs and slow onboarding they face with competitors,” says Kerrie. Alcami tracks how their labs are turning around projects and communicates that to clients.
“The fact that we can do that is something that differentiates us. Clients need reliable results on time, so we don’t slow down their programs.”
Committed to sustainability
Sustainability and social responsibility have always been part of Alcami’s DNA, says Kerrie, with a team dedicated to their sustainability goals.
“We are focused on sustainability at the highest level in the organisation. We capture what we are doing and share with clients, as well as continuing to evaluate ourselves against our ESG goals.”
“Social responsibility is important to Alcami. We encourage our employees to engage in the local community. We have a very hands-on, involved and passionate group of people across our company.”
To find out more about Alcami, make sure you meet them at CDMO Live on June 13th 2024. Register today for your free ticket.
