Interphex2007 and Bio2007

I live on the East coast around Boston and so I was able to get down to Interphex2007 in NY and just drive down to Boston for Bio2007.

Interphex2007 was quiet a disappointment for me. An interesting snippet was trying to reason why GE has acquired Wavebiotech. It is probably not wise to go into this speculation on-line as I prefer to stick to factual or innovative material. However, the continual consolidation of the supply industry IMO does not bode well for innovation or speed of new product introduction. However - I would like to be proven wrong.

George Adams (previous affiliation in Millipore disclosed), showed me the latest RFI tracking capability available on Millipore viral filter capsules. Although RFI has been implemented on pure water systems from Millipore for a while - this is the first RFI application for having embedded devices in bioprocess devices. It will be very interesting to see how this is taken up by the industry. IMO Millipore still “owns” integrity testing of sterile filters and therefore have a good starting position for this product. I am very interested to see how end user adopt the usability of using a reader, 21 CFR Part 11 issues etc. It would be an interesting bioprocessing world, where the integrity testing and all manufacturing information travelled in with the disposable device and could be electronically scanned to uniquely identify all manufacturing elements that were in contact with the bioprocess batch. But that waits for a later date.

Today, Xcellerex had the most complete offering for CMO disposable innovation. Pall and Millipore - in my opinion again - still seem to be deciding on their positioning. No one really has taken a decisive lead marketing position. Thermo has consumed Hyclone and TC Tech, I am also disappointed by this ;-( . As you can probably tell - the author is pretty adamant that consolidation is not necessarily going to help the cause of disposable manufacturing. At least not until one of the larger acquirers actually takes a pioneering position and diverts both product and marketing investment to do other than try to follow the tide and milk the trend.

But good luck to all my contacts, who are now part of a larger strategic acquisition. Change can be good!

Both these exhibitions are quite expensive for exhibitors and squeeze out the little guy or niche player. However, I did bump into a couple of contacts, one was an ex-millipore contact who has started Pendotech. I hope to have a chance to review their ideas at a later stage.

Judging by the overall attendance, crowd control, and activity - I don’t see any change in the level of industry activity. At Expo2007 in particular, disposable technolgies continued to take a front position in bioprocessing technology. So the state of the union still seems healthy.

Over the next couple of weeks - I will talk about two topics that I was most interested in from these shows:

• leachables
• disposable chromatography

28 May 2007 | Uncategorized | Comments