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“We'll focus on genomic medicine and growing our business in China”

31 May 2023 | Opinion

In May 2023, Cytiva and the life sciences business of Pall Corporation completed their integration and are now united as one business under the Cytiva brand. Emmanuel Ligner, President and CEO, Cytiva and Danaher Group Executive shares some pertinent details with BioSpectrum Asia about the merger, including the strategic rationale behind the decision, the impact on employees, customers, and stakeholders. Ligner reveals the long-term vision and goals for the newly-merged company.

Emmanuel Ligner, President and CEO, Cytiva and Danaher Group Executive

Emmanuel Ligner, President and CEO, Cytiva and Danaher Group Executive

What is the strategic rationale for the merger, and how does it fit into the long-term growth plans of both companies?

This is a dream come true for three good reasons. First, the life sciences business of Pall and Cytiva complement each other. We listened to our customers who told us they want more complete solutions – from research, to development, and agile manufacturing in new modalities, such as mRNA and cell and gene therapy.

Secondly, the combined manufacturing presence is exciting. We have an incredible opportunity to bring new manufacturing sites in valued spaces around the world, in response to the trend in localisation and regionalisation of manufacturing post-COVID.

Finally, the biotechnology industry is in constant movement and needs a strong collaborator that is capable of creating and innovating tools for transforming bioprocessing. Here, we have an opportunity to develop digital tools that are going to transform bioprocessing. We’ll now have the scale to do this at every phase – from discovery to delivery.

Our combined portfolio and business strengths will better position us for long-term growth. That’s why this integration is transformational and so exciting.

 

What are the key strengths of both the companies? 

With nearly 16,000 associates in 40 countries and more than 300 years’ heritage of expertise, the new Cytiva is better positioned to help customers solve biotechnology challenges in an era of emerging modalities. We now have the scale, talent, and incredible footprint to help our customers advance therapeutics for the benefit of patients around the world.

I’m proud to say that both Pall and Cytiva are distinguished brands. By coming together, our customers benefit greatly by tapping our combined expertise. For example, in upstream bioprocessing, Pall’s iCELLis bioreactor system, which is well known in the market, complements Cytiva’s single-use technology for fluid management. Cytiva also benefits by bringing Pall’s incredible expertise in filtration to the fold, and this was formerly a weakness in Cytiva’s portfolio.

 

How will the merged entity position itself in the market and what competitive advantages will it have over its rivals?

We want to be a comprehensive solutions provider and serve our customers from discovery to delivery. We’ll continue being that strong partner to our customers by focusing on innovation and digitalisation, especially in data management. 

I’m excited about the adoption of digital solutions for our customers to enable flexible, reliable bioprocess development. Through predictive batch, they can fail faster by reducing underperforming batches. Through in-silico process development, they can speed up high performance and flexible processes.

There’s also so much potential around data sharing. We’re exploring how we can help customers save time, money, and increase output by understanding what happens in every stage of a process.

Other than these key pillars, we’ll also focus on genomic medicine, and growing our business in China.

 

How will the merger impact the product portfolio and development pipeline?

We now have a broad product portfolio that can help customers to accelerate therapeutics from discovery to delivery. Our portfolio now includes product brands such as Allegro, Supor, iCELLis, Kleenpak, and Pegasus, in addition to ÄKTA, Amersham, Biacore, FlexFactory, HyClone, MabSelect, Sefia, Whatman, Xcellerex, and Xuri.

 

How about the impact on the respective companies' employees, customers and stakeholders?

Bringing together two organisations with strong legacies like this takes time. We’ve been working hard, and carefully, to make sure the process of transition is as seamless as possible for our customers, suppliers, and associates.

For associates, bringing together the life sciences business of Pall and Cytiva is about creating an organisation with the breadth and depth of expertise. Our associates can further develop themselves on a more comprehensive platform, with strong and best-mind talent, through a joint vision.

In turn, our customers will have simpler access to expertise, as well as a broader range of products and technologies from one organisation to help them advance and accelerate the development of novel therapeutics locally and regionally.

For our stakeholders, we will continue making a powerful impact on people and the planet by designing sustainability in six focus areas - reducing carbon footprint, using water responsibly, evolving our use of plastics, rethinking packaging, increasing diversity and inclusion, and advancing health and society.

Together with our customers and stakeholders, we aim to empower the biotechnology industry to collaborate closely to bring the next generation of therapeutics and solve some of the world’s major health challenges. I’m excited to see our impact in these areas.



Ayesha Siddiqui

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