Arts&MétiersMag - N°408 - Avril 2019 - 32

Publi-information

David Lescuyer - Managing Director, Skyepharma,
France
pharmaboardroom.com/interviews/david-lescuyer-managing-director-skyepharma-france/

David Lescuyer, managing director of Skyepharma, a
specialized CDMO, reﬂects on the past three years of
the company as it transitioned from a drug delivery
platform to a fully-ﬂedged service provider leveraging
agile solutions across the value chain. Lescuyer also
shares his insights on the service sector and the most
relevant trends impacting CDMO players.

Please begin by introducing
yourself and Skyepharma.
Skyepharma is a member of the Vectura
Group of companies, a British pharmaceutical company focused on drug
delivery and formulation of inhalation
devices. As part of Vectura, Skyepharma
is the oral solutions business unit, specialized in complex solid dosage forms.
It is important to note that three years
ago, Skyepharma embarked on a transformation journey from solely being a
drug delivery platform to a fully integrated, expert and agile CDMO. We leverage
a strong technological platform, professional expertise, and state of the art
equipment to provide our clients with an
end-to-end service oﬀering. We have invested very much in machinery, but not
only. We have also made evolutions on
our organization and corporate culture
and instilled lean management practices
across the company. In Skyepharma, we
have nurtured a strong culture based on
respect, trust, performance, transparency, and team values not only internally but with our clients as well. The goal
over these three years was about to establish an integrated organization where
discussion and exchange are encouraged
in daily operations. Since then, we have
increased our team size by 20 professionals, including three PhDs, two pharmacists and many engineers.

What have been the challenges of
instilling this team culture and
customer-centric approach?
The ﬁrst step we had to take was clarifying
our positioning internally and deliver the

vision of transitioning into a CDMO to
our team. Later on, we also had to
convey our new capabilities to our existing clients and future prospects. These
eﬀorts were very successful, and we
have quickly been able to build trustworthy partnerships and extensive collaborations with existing clients and many
new clients as well. This has been reﬂected in the double-digit growth we reached for the past two years and we
anticipate this trend to continue for 2019
as well.
Skyepharma has adopted a strong development oﬀering to help our clients with
activities such as formulation, lifecycle
management, early-stage development,
scale-up, commercial production, packaging and more services such as regulatory expertise, supply chain improvement
projects... We are able to provide seamless and adapted solutions as our clients'
projects grow and their needs evolve.

What are the production
capabilities of Skyepharma?
Our site near Lyon is 65,000 sqm with an
advanced 22,000 sqm manufacturing facility. Our high-tech equipment includes
two integrated granulation lines of 600 litres and 1,200 litres, wet granulation and
ﬂuid bed drying, a micro ﬂuidization line
with high-pressure homogenizer equipment, and more. Our facility has eight
compression suites able to manufacture
single, 2-layer, 3-layer tablets, press-coated tablets, hard capsules...
Moreover, Skyepharma leverages three
of our own patented technologies;
Geomatrix ® , Geoclock ® , and Soctec ®

Although there are
notable large players
in the CDMO sector,
we still see many small
to mid-size CMOs/CROs
growing and there is
still room for expansion
in this area

which deliver a strong diﬀerentiation
compared to our competitors. These
platforms allow us to build controlled release formulations to adapt to patient
dosing schedules or adjust API intake.
These technologies allow us to better
manage side eﬀects, something our
clients highly value. As a part of the pharmaceutical supply chain, we focus on
creating value for our clients to assist
them in better meeting patients' needs.

What comparative advantage is
Skyepharma able to leverage
within the CDMO sector?
Although there are notable large players
in the CDMO sector, we still see many
small to mid-size CMOs/CROs growing
and there is still room for expansion in
this area. The CDMO space is very fragmented and it was imperative that
Skyepharma continues to diﬀerentiate itself in order to stay ahead of the competition on the complex solid forms
segment.
As I mentioned, the ﬁrst capability
Skyepharma has lies in our ability to produce complex oral solid forms ranging
from capsules, granules, tablets, and
more. Through our technological knowhow, we can support our partners from
the earliest stages of their development
using innovative compression simulators
and quality by design processes which
we have developed in-house and used
many times to support our partners.
These competencies help us reduce time
to market, which is what clients look for
the most. One example would be the
Skyepharma technology transfer process.

http://www.pharmaboardroom.com/interviews/david-lescuyer-managing-director-skyepharma-france/

Arts&MétiersMag - N°408 - Avril 2019

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