Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Plastics News China
  • Rubber & Plastics News
logo-pn-color
Subscribe
  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • End Markets
    • FYI Charts
    • LSR World
    • Multimedia
    • NPE2021
    • K Show
    • Special Reports
    • Top materials of injection molders
      Recycled PET use by product category
      US PET, flexible packaging desintations
      Global fluropolymers additives market: CAGR
    • NPE exhibitors question handling of deposits for canceled trade show
      Exhibitors back NPE cancellation: ‘We couldn't take that risk'
      NPE2021 canceled as in-person event
      NPE reviews its options as pandemic prompts exhibitor to exit
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • What Keeps You Up At Night
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Videos
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • CEO Issue
    • Best Places to Work
    • Processor of the Year
    • Rising Stars
    • Women Breaking the Mold
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • Heavy Metal
    • One Good Resin
    • BRICS and Plastics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Perspective: Making the best of working from home
      Nypro's Gordon Lankton left the plastics industry a better place
      Recognizing Plastek Industries for all-around excellence
      Let's look forward, rather than back, to mark COVID anniversary
    • Kickstart: A different kind of auto plastics in Spring Hill
      Kickstart: They're not used shoes, they're 'refurbished'
      Kickstart: Holy guacamole, science is cool
      Kickstart: Coffee with a splash of sustainability
    • Heavy Metal: Coronavirus edition, plus the work of working from home
      Don't put off succession planning
      What's a good gift for your cobot? Batteries?
      Here's some big ideas to mull over the holidays
    • PE resin trends highlighted in Shell report
      Dow's Lowry honored by World Economic Forum for sustainability work
      Africa impacts new colors from Ampacet
      Plaskolite marches into madness with its own online bracket
    • Climate debate in Washington increasingly includes plastic
      There was no choice but canceling NPE still a big deal
      The business case for producer responsibility
      Think divided government stalls plastics legislation? Think again
    • Annual PN LSR directory grows
      Want prices? Introducing historical resin pricing, now available in a downloadable form
      A new annual ranking: Top processor gains
      Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
    • Working from home: Rugrats edition
      Nypro's Gordon Lankton left the plastics industry a better place
      Let's look forward, rather than back, to mark COVID anniversary
      Virtual pitfalls derail exhibits for builders' trade show
    • Machine builders press through pandemic with innovations
      PEX pipe maker Uponor donates $30,000 for Texas storm relief
      Virtual pitfalls derail exhibits for builders' trade show
      PPI puts $200 bounty on exhumed HDPE conduit
    • Perspective: Making the best of working from home
      Perspective: The Materials Wars: Is plastic actually better?
      Perspective: Plastics manufacturers — a surprising contribution to sustainability
      Plastics industry business owners: Listen to your future workforce
    • Mailbag: Additional fees for electric vehicles ‘unfortunate'
      Mailbag: Where's the plastics industry's response to critics?
      Mailbag: Manufacturers struggling to follow COVID-19 safety rules
      Modernizing recycling infrastructure will benefit businesses as well as the environment
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
    • Maintenance can ensure efficient blender operation
      Dosing: Perfect for adding color
      Blending vs dosing: What you need to know
      Going low or high: Comparing volume
    • Colors and custom compounds
      In the laboratory: Compounding solutions
      Recycling content: Resins going ‘green’
      Compounding: Glass and other fillers
    • Dryer maintenance: Don’t err with air
      Dryers: Options for a shop’s process
      Dryer installation: Going central?
      Resins: Hygroscopic or non-hygroscopic
    • Electric injection molding presses: Efficiency is key
      Hydraulic injection molding machines
      Proper maintenance can prevent downtime
      Hybrid injection molding machines
    • Purging Hot runners: Open or closed methods
      Purging extrusion machinery
      Purging extrusion blow molding machines
      Purging: Chemical, abrasive and non-abrasive
    • Controls, special applications boost production, profitability
      Robot maintenance key for smooth operation
      High-speed robots: A rapid way to increase efficiency
      Robots: Every shape and size
    • Maintenance: Key for efficiency
      Shredders: Plastic in pieces
      Safety first for size reduction
      Granulators: The right fit
    • Structural foam molding: Flexibility for processors
      Video: Structural foam molding
    • Mold inventory: How many molds does a shop have?
      Molds: Innovation
      Mold changeover: Saving time and money
      How molds work
    • Labor: Apprenticeships may provide answer
      Internships: Solving the skills gap in-house
      College training, programs
      Lean Six Sigma: Transforming business operation
  • Events
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Ask the Expert
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
    • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Polymer Points Live - May 2021
      Polymer Points Live - April 2021
      Polymer Points Live - February 2021
      Polymer Points Live - January 2021
    • Plastics in Healthcare 2020
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Plastics in Healthcare
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
  • Resin Prices
    • All Resins
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Rankings
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Data Store
  • Directory
  • More+
    • Classifieds
    • Digital Edition
    • Newsletters
    • Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Sponsored By Chase Plastics
      Styrenic Thermoplastics: 4 Polymers and Benefits of Each
      Sponsored By Bandera
      Bandera US was born for the North American market
      Sponsored By Ensign Equipment
      Filling systems customized for any process or budget need
      KraussMaffei
      Sponsored By KraussMaffei
      KraussMaffei retools in US with investment from parent ownership
    • KraussMaffei
      Sponsored By KraussMaffei
      KraussMaffei Retools in US with investment from Parent Ownership
    • Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Tailored maintenance for injection molding machines and robots
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Improve maintenance efficiency with e-connect.monitor
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Maximum precision for lowest shot weights
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Even more cost effectiveness for small precision parts
    • Shell Polymer
      Sponsored By Shell Polymers
      Food and beverage trends impacting the polymer industry
      Sponsored By Conexiom
      Use Sales Order Automation to free up time for CSRs to focus on customers, not manual entry
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
July 11, 2018 02:00 AM

Saint-Gobain opens test lab for life sciences unit

Catherine Kavanaugh
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print
    Saint-Gobain Life Sciences
    The new lab for Saint-Gobain Life Sciences is dedicated to learning more about cell and material interactions for designing single-use systems for cell and gene therapies.

    Solon, Ohio-based Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics has opened a life sciences lab in Worcester, Mass., for testing products in the fast-growing market for cell and gene therapies.

    Living cells are essentially a new class of drugs thanks to recent advances like CAR-T cell therapy, which allows scientists to modify a patient's immune cells and send them back into the person to detect and destroy cancer. Targeting the immune system instead of the disease represents a paradigm shift in treating cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

    Saint-Gobain's Performance Plastics business unit produces a variety of disposable products for these promising new therapies, including cell culture and processing bags branded as VueLife and cryopreservation products branded as KryoSure that are made mostly from flourinated ethylene propylene (FEP). The company is also developing new products for this field.

    The Worcester lab is dedicated to learning more about cell and material interactions for designing single-use systems for cell and gene therapies, Benjamin Le Quere, manager of Saint-Gobain's Bioprocess Solutions, said in a phone interview.

    "Saint-Gobain has a long history around high-performance materials, including fluoropolymers," Le Quere said. "Now we're adding this layer of biology to better relate what our materials do to the application of the customer, which in this case is biotech drug manufacturers."

    This emerging field of medicine has specific needs when it comes to ensuring patient safety through validated processes and materials in drug manufacturing, Le Quere said.

    "In cases where a biotech company takes the cells of a patient, and in a way, trains the cells to fight diseases, such as cancer, and puts them back into the same patient, you have manufacturing concerns," he added.

    The best practices for manufacturing and distributing personalized medicines, which are developed with genetic material in gene therapy or whole cells in cell therapy and sometimes overlap, are still unfolding. Any problems or challenges could affect the commercial and clinical viability of these precious products.

    "Logistics for these therapies is an open problem," Le Quere said.

    Consider all the steps and people involved with a cell-based gene therapy branded as Kymriah, which last August became the first CAR-T cell therapy approved by the Federal Drug Administration. Unlike other medicines, Kymriah has been likened to your body using your own strength to fight your cancer. The therapy is given to patients under the age of 25 who relapsed or aren't responding to initial treatments for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive deadly type of cancer for some.

    Kymriah requires a lengthy process with various settings, handlers and containers, including dedicated containers for storage and transport as well as disposable containers, like culture bags, for the manufacturing process. The therapy takes about a month, starting with the patient going to a medical center for a blood draw to collect T cells, the natural defender of the immune system. The cells are then frozen and shipped to the drug manufacturer — in this case Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. in New Jersey, for reprogramming and multiplying. Then the cells, which have been altered to attack cancer, are frozen again and sent back to the medical center to be placed back into the patient through an IV infusion.

    In a trial involving 63 severely ill children and young adults, 83 percent went into remission from their customized treatments, which are given once at a cost of about $475,000. (For comparison, bone marrow transplants, which can cure some kinds of leukemia, generally range from $540,000 to $800,000.)

    To help advance these kinds of therapies at its new 1,400-square-foot Biosafety Level 2 lab, Saint-Gobain staff will isolate, process and culture both primary and so-called immortalized cells then evaluate material, cell and protein interactions. They will study the effects of materials on cell attributes and yields using high-end analytical equipment. The facility also devotes space to develop applications for new products and has capabilities for sterile welding, pumping and low temperature testing.

    The lab is located on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, but Saint-Gobain and the university aren't research partners. The site was chosen because the company has a research and development facility in nearby Northboro.

    "This lab is an annex of that," Le Quere said. "The purpose is to understand what our products do to the end-use application. We're trying to bridge that gap of understanding between materials and biology."

    Saint-Gobain Life Sciences

    A small staff with Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics will study the effects of materials on cell attributes and yields using high-end analytical equipment. The lab also devotes space to develop applications for new products and has capabilities for sterile welding, pumping and low temperature testing.

    A critical component

    Saint-Gobain officials call the Worcester lab a "critical component" to leveraging the company's material science expertise into scalable solutions for bioprocessing.

    Some of the company's prior research compared FEP cell culture bags to rigid polystyrene multiwell plates or T-flasks, which are the traditional products used since the 1960s. The research found fluoropolymer bags offer the benefits of transparency, flexibility and permeability for gas exchange in cell culture incubators. The bags also resist chemicals and biologics and remain flexible and thermally stable across a wide range of temperatures. FEP is also extruded as a virgin resin and doesn't contain additives or plasticizers.

    "The work on polystyrene vs. FEP cell culture containers is representative of the studies that we will conduct in the sense that we will be looking at the impact of different plastic disposables on cell attributes and cell culture yield, and with commercial cell therapy manufacturing in mind, meaning at scale and following good manufacturing practices," Le Quere said.

    Some of the work done at the lab will focus on protecting the microenvironment inside the culture container. To make an effective drug, cells need to properly grow and multiply in sufficient numbers, and keep expressing their traits without losing or altering the end drug product during storage at cryogenic temperatures, Le Quere explained.

    Strategically designed cell culture, processing and preservation systems will pave the way for the next generation of potent cell-based cancer therapies and vaccines, according to Saint-Gobain's Performance Plastic officials.

    Saint-Gobain Life Sciences

    Saint-Gobain officials call the Worcester, Mass. lab a "critical component" to leveraging the company's material science expertise into scalable solutions for emerging gene and cell therapies.

    The growing need

    The World Health Organization says there are about 14 million new cases of cancer a year and the disease was responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015. The grim numbers and promising treatments have companies sharpening their focus on developing and launching novel therapies and products to meet growing demand for individualized drugs for patients facing poor outcomes, according to Coherent Market Insights.

    The firm with a U.S. office in Seattle, Wash., estimates that the global CAR-T Cell therapy market, which is only a subset of cell therapy, is valued at $167.9 million in 2018 and will increase to $8 billion in the next 10 years. In addition to Novartis, major players are Kite Pharma Inc., Juno Therapeutics, Pfizer Inc., Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celgene Corp. and others.

    Zion Market Research of New York says the regenerative medicines market, which includes tissue engineering and immunotherapy in addition to gene and cell therapies, was valued at about $7.9 billion in 2017 and will grow at an annual rate of about 18.6 percent to $26.3 billion by the end of 2024 with the cell segment dominating.

    Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics' Life Sciences division opened a manufacturing facility for specialty disposables for both the cell therapy and biotechnology markets in 2016. The company renovated a 37,000-square-foot building in Gaithersburg, Md., and installed injection molding and over-molding machines with automated part retrieval and conveyance to an ISO 7 cleanroom. Bags are manufactured with a proprietary laser welding process.

    With more than 6,000 employees in 22 countries, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics also manufactures flexible tubing, seals, coated fabrics, foams, window film, barrier/release films and tapes in addition to medical components.

    The business unit is part of Saint-Gobain Corp., which is the North American holding company of the France-based parent company, Cie de Saint-Gobain. Founded in 1665, the parent company, which also serves the building products, infrastructure, transportation and industrial markets, posted sales of $47.5 billion in 2017. The company has a manufacturing or retail presence in 67 countries and a total of 179,000 employees.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    logo-pn-color
    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber & Plastics News
    • Urethanes Technology
    • Plastics News China
    • European Rubber Journal
    • Tire Business
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2021. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • What Keeps You Up At Night
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
        • Polymer Points Live
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • FYI Charts
        • Current FYI
      • LSR World
      • Multimedia
        • Videos
        • Galleries
        • Podcasts
      • NPE2021
      • K Show
      • Special Reports
        • CEO Issue
        • Best Places to Work
        • Processor of the Year
        • Rising Stars
        • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • Heavy Metal
      • One Good Resin
      • BRICS and Plastics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Plastics in Healthcare
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
      • Industry Events
      • Livestreams/Webinars
      • Ask the Expert
      • Polymer Points Live
      • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
      • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
      • Plastics in Healthcare Library
      • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Resin Prices
      • All Resins
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Rankings
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Data Store
    • Directory
    • More+
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified
      • Digital Edition
      • Newsletters
      • Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Processor of the Year submissions