Off Script: A Pharma Manufacturing Podcast

Pharma Manufacturing

The Off Script podcast offers in-depth interviews and discussions with industry experts about hot-button topics in pharma, and goes behind the scenes of Pharma Manufacturing’s print and online coverage, which follows the industry’s biggest issues surrounding scale-up, technology innovations, regulations and more!

  1. 9 июн.

    How Biocatalysis Is Changing Pharma Manufacturing

    Interest in macrocyclic peptides (MCPs) continues to grow, which means manufacturers are facing mounting pressure to develop production methods capable of supporting commercial-scale demand of these molecules. While they offer a unique combination of potency, selectivity, and drug-like properties, the structural complexity of MCPs has historically made them difficult and costly to manufacture using traditional peptide synthesis techniques. As a result, new manufacturing approaches are emerging that aim to improve efficiency, scalability, and sustainability while expanding access to this promising class of therapeutics. In this episode of Off Script, we spoke with David Thaisrivongs, executive director, head of biocatalysis at Merck, about research recently published in Science detailing a biocatalytic manufacturing process for enlicitide, an investigational oral macrocyclic peptide designed to lower LDL cholesterol. The conversation explores the limitations of conventional solid-phase peptide synthesis, how Merck leveraged enzyme-driven manufacturing and crystallization strategies to significantly reduce process complexity, and why minimizing chromatography can be critical for commercial-scale peptide production. He also discussed the broader implications of biocatalysis for manufacturing increasingly complex therapeutic modalities and how the technology could help shape the future of pharmaceutical production.

    19 мин.
  2. 2 июн.

    How Peptide Development Complexity Is Reshaping CDMO Partnerships: Part Two

    As peptide therapeutics become larger, more complex, and increasingly purity-sensitive, manufacturers are confronting a new layer of execution challenges. Long-chain peptides introduce compounding scale-up inefficiencies, increasingly fragile purification requirements, and impurity profiles that become more difficult to characterize and control at commercial scale. At the same time, growing dependence on specialized amino acids, tightly specified reagents, and globally distributed supply chains are forcing developers and CDMOs to think more strategically about how process design decisions made early in development can ultimately determine long-term manufacturability and program risk. In this episode of Off Script, we continued our conversation with Dr. Sharadsrikar Venkatesan Kotturi, chief scientific officer at Neuland Laboratories, about the operational and technical realities shaping modern peptide manufacturing. The discussion explores why long-chain and high-purity peptides become increasingly difficult to scale reproducibly, how aggregation, impurity control, and analytical sensitivity compound across larger sequences, and why process robustness ultimately determines whether peptide programs can succeed commercially. We also examine the growing intersection between process design and supply chain resilience, including how early route selection decisions can amplify sourcing risk for protected amino acids and specialized reagents.

    21 мин.
  3. 22 мая

    Solutions Spotlight: Managing Chloramines in Pharmaceutical Water Systems

    As municipal water utilities increasingly shift from free chlorine to chloramine disinfection strategies, pharmaceutical manufacturers are facing new challenges in maintaining consistent, high-purity water systems. While chloramines provide utilities with longer-lasting residual disinfection and reduced formation of regulated byproducts, they also introduce operational risks inside pharmaceutical facilities. As a result, manufacturers are reassessing traditional chloramine removal approaches and exploring more proactive treatment strategies that improve resiliency, monitoring, and long-term operational efficiency.   In this episode of Off Script, sponsored by Trojan Technologies, we spoke with Wayne Lem, global applications manager at Trojan Technologies, about the evolving role of UV technology in pharmaceutical water treatment systems. The conversation explores how chloramine shifts at the municipal level are impacting pharmaceutical manufacturing operations, the limitations of traditional approaches like catalytic carbon and reducing chemicals, and how UV-based chloramine destruction can help facilities improve process reliability while reducing maintenance and chemical dependency. Lem also discusses the operational and economic considerations behind UV adoption, the importance of continuous monitoring and validation in regulated environments, and why hybrid, multi-barrier treatment strategies are becoming increasingly important as manufacturers modernize water infrastructure.

    18 мин.

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The Off Script podcast offers in-depth interviews and discussions with industry experts about hot-button topics in pharma, and goes behind the scenes of Pharma Manufacturing’s print and online coverage, which follows the industry’s biggest issues surrounding scale-up, technology innovations, regulations and more!

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