Pharmaceutical Technology Excellence Awards 2021 – winners announced!

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The Pharmaceutical Technology Excellence Awards are designed to celebrate the greatest achievements and innovations in the industry. The awards provide a platform to recognise the people and companies that are driving change. The award programme is meant to highlight excellence within the sector by looking at a range of corporate activities including deals, business projects and company initiatives, both internal and in the community.

During our research we looked at a thousand separate projects covering the several areas and invited submissions of case studies from the market. We also undertook extensive research ourselves looking back over the previous 18 months of coverage on Pharmaceutical Technology and from a wide variety of other industry sources. In addition, we also analysed a vast range of company data and releases from GlobalData.com.

The excellence categories recognise outstanding achievements in each of our core areas. All companies and organisations from across the sector are under consideration and we only considered projects directly related to the sub categories.

The winners in the excellence categories are as follows:

This looks at any projects that have expanded the company’s footprint in the sector. This could mean anything from increased market share and M&A deals through to asset acquisitions or new product lines.

Winner: Eli Lilly Biologics

Eli Lilly agreed to a global expansion of its strategic collaboration with Innovent Biologics for Tyvyt (sintilimab injection), which the partners jointly develop in China. Tyvyt is an anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody immuno-oncology drug. It is part of China’s National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL). Last year, Eli Lilly and Innovent started commercialising the drug in China following marketing approval to treat relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin’s lymphoma after at least two lines of systemic chemotherapy.

This category recognises companies who have reacted effectively and positively to the global pandemic.

Winner: Pfizer, BioNTech

Pfizer and BioNTech win our Covid-19 Response award after being the first to receive authorisation for a vaccine tested in a large clinical trial, having submitted in October 2020 before receiving approval in December that year in the US and UK. It is hard to underestimate the impact of the announcement not only in terms of a milestone in vaccine development during the pandemic but also on the public mood as the announcement was seen as a turning point in the world’s fight against the pandemic. Pfizer has since then, along with a number of other pharmaceutical companies, initiated work into oral antivirals to combat the virus.

This class looks at companies who are making notable strides to reduce their carbon footprint or waste output or give back to or improve the natural environment. Being an environmentally conscious organisation is no longer a matter of choice, customers, consumers, investors and shareholders are now all aware as never before about the importance of such issues. This is thereby increasing their demands around reporting environmental impact data and including these factors in new business contract negotiations.

Winner: Alliance to Zero

Eight companies, all part of the pharmaceutical supply chain, have joined a non-profit membership association, Alliance to Zero. The newly founded foundation is aimed at facilitating the transition of the pharma sector to comply with net-zero emissions and is in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. Sharp, Harro Höfliger, Schreiner MediPharm, Körber Pharma, Schott, Health Beacon, Datwyler, and Ypsomed are all part of the founding members of the alliance. All share the view that collaboration across the pharmaceutical supply chain is needed urgently to reduce the manufacturing emissions footprint.

This category recognises new concepts in anything from business function to marketing. Innovations could range from new product or service concepts, changes to a business structure, utilization of new technology or disruptive concepts from other industries.

Winner: Exscientia, BMS

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) and Exscientia have signed a partnership agreement to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for the discovery of small molecule drug candidates in various therapeutic areas, including oncology and immunology. According to the collaboration, Exscientia will receive up to $50m as an upfront payment from BMS. Exscientia is also eligible to get up to $125m in near to mid-term milestones and further clinical, regulatory and commercial payments, taking the total deal value to more than $1.2bn.

This award highlights organisations that have brought notable new lines to the market. We look at the whole process of launching a new line including the concept, the need that it meets, the development cycle and the time taken to bring it to market, not to mention the qualities of the product itself and any marketing campaign enacted to accompany the launch.

Winner: Genoskin

Genoskin is a biotechnology company that provides transformative platforms and tools leveraging human skin to test therapeutic and non-therapeutic products. The company has launched an ISR platform, which is a new pre-clinical toolbox designed to study injection site reactions (ISR) in humans, ahead of clinical trials. With the new platform, Genoskin can support the development of safer new biologics by characterizing mast cell-dependent (pseudo-allergy) or -independent inflammatory skin adverse events.

This award category aims to reward companies who have committed to developing new concepts. Unlike the innovation category, in R&D we are looking only at new product concepts and the level of time and investment companies are putting into realizing them.

Winner: BioMarin, Deep Genomics

BioMarin has entered a preclinical collaboration with Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Deep Genomics to discover and develop oligonucleotide drug candidates for four undisclosed rare diseases with high unmet need. According to the terms of the agreement, the partners will leverage Deep Genomics’ AI drug discovery platform, the AI Workbench, to identify and validate target mechanisms and lead candidates, while BioMarin will be responsible for pre-clinical and clinical development.

The Safety category looks at projects put in place to improve the safety of the workplace or of the products or services offered by the organisation. In addition we also consider any projects undertaken to improve safety in the wider community, whether this be through education, financing or the provision of products or infrastructure.

Winner: TransPerfect

TransPerfect, a translation and language services company has developed AI strategies which can be used for a number of purposes within the pharmaceutical sector. These include the streamlining of multilingual safety reporting, a process which often requires translations in a very short time period. The company also highlighted its work for a top-10 pharma company, which involved identifying adverse event cases and fast tracking them for translation allowing for much faster responses. TransPerfect also announced that it is sharing a data set from its DataForce solution that will allow AI and chatbot developers to provide information on COVID-19 in multiple languages.

The Social Impact category recognises excellence in projects that benefit the wider community. We are specifically looking for organisations that have made a tangible positive impact in their local community, or in society in general, and have done so outside of their usual business functions.

Winner: The Altrui Foundation

The Altrui Foundation is a non-profit organization that serves as a centre point between manufacturers of unused medications and the charitable organizations that seek them. The foundation distributes essential medications to victims in disaster areas, uninsured patients in the US, and underserved communities across the world.

Congratulations to all of the winners - click here to download the full report and find out the winners and shortlisted entities in our other categories.