51 TWENTYFOURSEVENBIOPHARMA Issue 2 / June 2025 SHILPA PHARMA LIFESCIENCES clients, including factors like existing capital, investor funding, and size, among others, to broker mutually beneficial deals balancing cost, quality, and speed on a case-by-case basis. This approach is also present in their product offerings, where they can support both small and large-molecule products. “The beauty of our model is that we can support any pharma company, any biotech company, endto-end, from R&D to clinical to manufacturing to commercialization,” said Bal. “. Whenever you say hybrid, it’s actually a lot of value add for pharma companies...their overheads are reduced because they don’t have to manage five different CDMOs: just one CDMO, one project manager, [and a] stellar delivery team.” Expanding capabilities A key announcement Shilpa made at the time of the interview was the company’s push into microbial manufacturing, which will now total 210,000 liters of capacity across the company’s manufacturing imprint. The company has also invested in making its stainless steel bioreactors fully automated. This expansion is intended not only to better service clients, but to also provide a solution to a problem they see in the broader Indian CDMO market. “We see the demand in the market, and traditionally, India has been behind in terms of servicing fermentation-based customers,” said Bal. “We want to meet that demand. A lot of the demand is going to China, and we want to step in and take some of that market.” “We want to tell the world that, hey, India is not behind,” added Bhutada. “We are planning for five years in advance so that all the customers don’t feel like in the end, ‘okay, we’re gonna go only up to a certain scale and then, okay, what next?’ So we want to be sure that we send the message to the customers that we are there for them for the long term.” According to Bal, developing this capacity serves two key purposes. First, it allows the company to advance its own biologics pipeline, increasing inhouse capacity for those purposes. Additionally, the sheer scale of their capacity means they do not have to turn down customers launching products that need fermentation-based manufacturing at scale, which aids in the company’s promise of end-to-end capability. “We don’t want to be hamstrung by a small capability and have to say to the customer, ‘for commercialization, go to some other CDMO,’ which is just not good for us. It’s not a good business model,” said Bal. “So we want to be sure that we are with the customers right from start to finish.” Notably, both men stressed that the bioreactor expansions are just one way the company reinforced its breadth of services. For instance, Bhutada noted that long before GLP-1s dominated headlines for its use in various blockbuster obesity treatments, Shilpa was investing in the infrastructure to manufacture peptides at scale. Consequently, the company can currently manufacture 2000 kilograms of peptides a year, while other CDMOs are still racing to build capacity. “GLP-1s are becoming the true innovation in the obesity and the diabetes market,” said Bal. “And so we felt that being able to rise to the demand is something that is obviously commercially viable thing for us, it’s a smart thing to do... [but] and we want to continually message to the pharma world that we are available for any complex synthesis of peptides from 2 mer up to 70 mer... it’s a no-brainer for us to be intensely focused on the peptide market.” Ultimately, the message Bhutada and Bal stressed during this interview was one wherein excellence was achieved through scale. Rather than being bogged down by antiquated agreement structures or an inflexible approach, Shilpa strives to develop an extensive array of capabilities that allow them to utilize scale to promote excellence. “Our tagline, “Innovating for Affordable Healthcare” speaks volumes about our philosophy”, said Bal. “We believe in delivering innovation and bringing life-saving medicines to patients.” “We want to be a committed company for our partners. And once we take a program, if anyone is working with us, we will be committed,” said Bhutada. “If a Biotech comes to us, and once we join hands with them, for example, during the drug development phase, if they are struggling, we will see that the drug comes to market and both companies benefit. That is the main commitment which we as a company want to bring to our partners.” GRANT PLAYTER Editor 24/7 BIOPHARMA
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