The France Bioproduction Congress, co-organized by Polepharma and Medicen, is France’s leading bioproduction event. It welcomed over 500 participants April 3-4, 2024. Servier is a leading force in this new field of expertise, which is why Servier Group President Olivier Laureau chaired the sixth edition of this event. Now at a crossroads, France ranks second in Europe for biomanufacturing, although 95% of the biotherapies used in the country are imported.

Biomedicines are a new generation of medicine whose active ingredients are derived from living systems of biological origin, such as proteins, antibodies, cells, etc. They offer therapeutic alternatives to chemical molecules and hope for many patients.

Consequently, the biomedical production sector is a key factor in addressing the healthcare challenges of today and tomorrow. It has been identified as such in the Santé 2030 health plan in France. And outside France, it’s an industry of excellence that should be developed for patients in Europe and around the world.

French biomanufacturing faces major challenges that could determine the sector’s future :

• Biomanufacturing sites reaching the critical size that would make them attractive on a European and international scale;
• Organization that demonstrates flexibility and versatility;
• Medium- and long-term vision for sustainable development of the industry: the need to anticipate regulations and societal expectations in terms of CSR;
• Dynamic development in France, and a growing awareness of the European context: financing, customers, suppliers, competitors, investors;
• Training to identify future needs and stay at the cutting edge of expertise in this field.
• The Servier Group is a driving force in all these stakes and is making a tangible commitment to them, particularly through its Bio-S biomanufacturing unit in the Loiret region of France. By the end of the year, this unit will be qualified to produce batches used in clinical trials.

In 2020, Servier expanded its portfolio of biomedicine candidates through the acquisition of Symphogen, a Denmark-based platform for the development of therapeutic antibodies.

Servier is also committed to the field of education. In 2020, Servier and Sanofi joined forces with the University of Tours to create the Digital Biotech Campus.

Bio-S in Gidy, an “all-in-one” unit producing a full range from active ingredient to medicine

Servier will use the 10,000 m² site to develop manufacturing processes and analytical methods, manufacture clinical batches of active ingredients and experimental biomedicines for clinical trials, thereby boosting research to serve patient needs.

On-site expertise includes integration of specific sensors in bioreactors in order to deliver on-line control, introduction of new culture media (the critical raw material for determining production yields), and industrial scale-up of production developed on smaller volumes. Simultaneously, recent technologies are expected to enable a rapid transition to production methods driven by artificial intelligence in order to better regulate production parameters and even better anticipate changes by implementing digital twins for each unit.