Axplora Strategy Teardown: Investing in High-Growth Therapeutics with a Customer-Driven Approach

“When you’re building something at the edge of science, it’s crucial to start with the problem, not the solution. My team has created 15 pharma startups using this approach, and 14 are still alive.” – Kerstin Papenfuss, Director of Pharma at Deep Science VenturesKerstin Papenfuss serves as the Director of Pharma at Deep Science Ventures, where she leads the creation and development of novel therapeutics for unmet medical needs. With a PhD in Tumour Immunology from Imperial College London and an MBA from Bayes Business School, Kerstin brings over a decade of experience in oncology, signal transduction, and pharmaceutical markets to her role building science-based startups from scratch.Kerstin explains why traditional approaches to biotech startup creation often fail and how working from first principles can lead to more successful, impactful ventures. Her experience spans working with entrepreneurs, academics, pharmaceutical companies, and disease charities to build companies that solve fundamental challenges in healthcare.Read the full article:https://pharmasource.global/content/podcast/building-biotechs-from-first-principles-deep-science-ventures-formula-for-science-based-innovation/

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how pharmaceutical manufacturing timelines can be dramatically compressed while maintaining quality. At CDMO Live 2025, Fabrice Le Garrec shared lessons from the Lonza-Moderna vaccine scale-up, where "timeline meant lives."Here are his "10 Commandments" for fast-tracking emergency drug manufacturing.Dpwnload the full CDMO Live 2025 Report

Simon Kucher opened CDMO Live 2025 in Rotterdam by unveiling brand new research developed in partnership with PharmaSource.The comprehensive study, presented by Kaan-Fabian Kekec and Clarita Simon, mapped the evolving landscape of CDMO-sponsor partnerships based on insights from over 100 industry experts.Read more

CDMO Live 2025, a panel sponsored by Lifecore Biomedical brought together industry quality leaders to discuss how quality management can become a strategic enabler rather than a compliance burden. The panel featured Jackie Klecker (EVP Quality & Development Services, Lifecore Biomedical), Liesbeth Foesters (VP Head of External & Clinical Supply Quality, UCB), Stefan Bouckaert (Vice President External Supply Integration Quality, Johnson & Johnson), and Gwladys Mabonzo (Associate Director External Manufacturing Vaccines, MSD).Download the full 50 page report

“We invest to meet the needs of the customer. What’s driving these investments are really the customer partnerships that we’re building to make these happen,” explains Arul Ramadurai, Chief Commercial Officer at Axplora.Axplora, a global leader in API small molecule and ADC manufacturing, was formed through the merger of Farmabios, Novasep, and PharmaZell. With 2,400 employees across ten API manufacturing sites in Europe, India and the US, the company has recently accelerated its growth strategy with major investments in high-growth areas like GLP-1 peptides and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).In a strategic leadership move to drive this expansion, the company appointed Martin Meeson as its new Chief Executive Officer in April 2024, succeeding Sylke Hassel.In the latest episode of the PharmaSource podcast we interview Arul Ramadurai about the company strategy.Full interview

At CDMO Live 2025, a panel sponsored by Aizon explored how pharma companies are transforming external manufacturing operations through digital integration, with experts from sharing practical approaches to implementation.The Digital Divide: Big Pharma vs Mid-Size PlayersThe panellists painted a stark contrast in digital maturity across the pharmaceutical manufacturing landscape. Dave O'Gara, pharmaceutical business consultant at Aizon with over 30 years experience at Novartis, outlined the current state of play."When you move into pharma and segregate into big pharma, they have digital strategies... When you move into the mid-range CDMOs and smaller CMOs, it's not so active," O'Gara explained, highlighting what he termed a "massive opportunity" for mid-size players.Franziskus Kath, founder of Kath-Consulting and former VP of Emerging Technology for QA at Johnson & Johnson, confirmed this assessment: "The larger the companies, the more digital is already there... Most of them have been for the past eight to 10 years really tackling the topic."From the CDMO perspective, Vishnu Dwadasi, Director of Life Sciences at West Monroe, described significant implementation challenges: "A lot of these companies are still very manual, so they have to move from paper to digital and then digital to eventually leveraging analytics and AI."Download the full report

“Know your supply chain. Make sure you have it well mapped. The biggest thing that we’ve seen coming out of COVID was investments in technology – that’s what’s helping manufacturers respond to the unexpected.”Ryan Kelly, Senior Director of Supply Chain Security and Brand Protection at Rx-360, delivered this stark assessment of pharmaceutical supply chain management during a live podcast recording at CDMO Live 2025 in Rotterdam.Ryan brings extensive experience in pharmaceutical supply chain security from his role at Rx-360, a nonprofit consortium representing approximately 130 manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and contract logistics providers. His organisation focuses on safeguarding the quality and security of pharmaceutical supply chains through information sharing and collaborative risk management.In this episode Ryan explains how pharmaceutical companies can build resilience against increasingly frequent supply chain disruptions whilst maintaining patient access to critical medications.Read more

"There are not that many European CDMOs with commercial expertise in cell therapy - who understand the regulatory requirements and production challenges when you have to manufacture large quantities on a regular basis. This is why we ended up with a very short list of two or three potential suppliers."CellProthera's recent announcement of its manufacturing partnership with SEQENS for Phase III trials marks a pivotal moment in the French biotech's journey from research lab to commercial reality. The eight-month technology transfer process now underway represents years of strategic planning and hard-won lessons about scaling cell therapy manufacturing.In an exclusive interview, Matthieu De Kalbermatten, CEO of CellProthera, reveals the detailed selection process that led to choosing CELLforCURE by SEQENS as their manufacturing partner. His insights offer a rare glimpse into how biotechs navigate the complex transition from early development to commercial-scale production.Read article

“My ambition for being a CDMO is that there will always be technical challenges, but I want to be transparent about the challenge and provide options to a customer.”Hanns-Christian Mahler, CEO of ten23 health, brings 15 years of sponsor-side experience to his current role leading a sterile product CDMO focused on drug product development, manufacturing and testing. His unique perspective from both sides of the outsourcing relationship provides valuable insights into building successful partnerships.In the latest PharmaSource podcast episode recorded at CDMO Live 2025, Hanns explains why transparency, realistic planning and early development integration are essential strategies for avoiding costly manufacturing failures and building sustainable relationships.Read more

Leaders from the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) and Manufacture 2030 outlined the mounting pressure on contract manufacturers to address sustainability at CDMO Live 2025, with major pharma companies now making emissions reduction a prerequisite for business relationships.The Climate-Healthcare ConnectionRob Williams, Senior Director of Sustainable Procurement at AstraZeneca and Chair of PSCI, opened with a stark reality check about healthcare's environmental impact. "Healthcare contributes 5% of global emissions. That's actually more than aviation, which is often pointed out as being one of the poster children of the problem we're creating," Williams revealed.The connection between climate change and healthcare is becoming increasingly clear, with WHO recognising climate impacts as a major health issue. "Whether it's increased temperatures, whether it's intensity of storms, whether it's flooding... all of those organisations recognise that as the climate is changing, it's presenting impacts on human health," Williams explained.Martin Chilcott, CEO and founder of Manufacture 2030, added critical context: "It's not just the headline acts of malaria and cholera that we're talking about moving with temperature changes, but also it's the migration patterns... 120 million people on the move because of the unlivability of the world in which they exist."Download the full report