When Wyeth named Michael Kamarck as its new head of manufacturing this week, we asked, “Who is that guy?”
Wyeth indulged us. And we found out Kamarck, 57, was trained as a biochemist, and that he’s been looking after biotech manufacturing for the company since joining in 2001 from Bayer.
His goals in the new job, he told us in a telephone chat, are to increase efficiency across the board for the maker of small-molecule drugs, vaccines and biologics. “What’s most important to us right now is shortening the time to development and getting these products into the clinic and the market more quickly,” he said.
Wyeth has had its share of manufacturing problems in the past. Besides a run of FDA trouble, Wyeth failed to meet demand at times for its widely used pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar and the anti-inflammatory biologic Enbrel, co-marketed with Amgen.
Kamarck acknowledged that the demand for these products wasn’t “adequately anticipated” early on. But Wyeth has beefed up infrastructure and improved manufacturing processes. The company opened a state-of-the-art factory in Ireland last year and has even patented some innovations to its manufacturing chain. And the company has been making a stockpile of a new, more complex version of Prevnar in anticipation of FDA approval in 2010.
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Wyeth indulged us. And we found out Kamarck, 57, was trained as a biochemist, and that he’s been looking after biotech manufacturing for the company since joining in 2001 from Bayer.
His goals in the new job, he told us in a telephone chat, are to increase efficiency across the board for the maker of small-molecule drugs, vaccines and biologics. “What’s most important to us right now is shortening the time to development and getting these products into the clinic and the market more quickly,” he said.
Wyeth has had its share of manufacturing problems in the past. Besides a run of FDA trouble, Wyeth failed to meet demand at times for its widely used pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar and the anti-inflammatory biologic Enbrel, co-marketed with Amgen.
Kamarck acknowledged that the demand for these products wasn’t “adequately anticipated” early on. But Wyeth has beefed up infrastructure and improved manufacturing processes. The company opened a state-of-the-art factory in Ireland last year and has even patented some innovations to its manufacturing chain. And the company has been making a stockpile of a new, more complex version of Prevnar in anticipation of FDA approval in 2010.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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