Charlottetown-based BioVectra has become a world leader in the biopharmaceutical industry by constantly reinventing itself

Company: BioVectra Inc.
Revenue: $19,939,000
Location: Charlottetown, P.E.I.
2009 Rank: 71

The last thing some might expect to encounter in a place primarily known for agriculture and fisheries is a company like BioVectra. This high-tech biopharmaceutical company has been on Prince Edward Island for almost 40 years, quietly building its network of clients and portfolio of patents. It was creating pharmaceutical ingredients, and the methods to make them, before innovation became the buzzword of the knowledge economy. It’s the granddaddy of innovators on the Island.

In its own words, the company “develops and manufactures large and small molecule-advanced pharmaceutical ingredients, advanced intermediates, specialty chemicals, and enzymes for pharmaceutical and health care companies.” Simply put, it means that BioVectra makes chemical and biological ingredients (intermediates) that are in turn used by other companies to create medicines and other pharmaceutical products.

“We work with most of the major pharmaceutical companies to supply them with ingredients,” says company CEO Ron Keefe. “But we’ll also manufacture their drug here.”

For instance, BioVectra is the world’s largest manufacturer of the chemical intermediate Dithiothreitol (DTT), which is commonly used as a reducing agent on proteins to keep them stable. Most biotech companies in the world that work with protein-based drugs call BioVectra when they need their supply of DTT.

Gary Reid, BioVectra’s vice-president of R&D, joined the company 33 years ago as an industrial post-doctoral fellow. One of his first jobs was to work on DTT; it has since become the company’s leading core product. “It accounts for about 20% of our total sales,” says Reid, “and we produce about 80% of the world’s supply.”

Both Reid and Keefe stress that the company’s expertise goes far beyond simply supplying global drug companies with ingredients, even though a full 70% of BioVectra’s sales are in the U.S., with another 20% in the E.U. and Asia.

“We specialize in taking something from a lab and making it commercially viable from a manufacturing perspective,” says Keefe. “A big part of the business is working with smaller pharmaceutical companies who are developing drugs. They need our expertise to develop processes to get them through the testing phases and ultimately to the end users.”

BioVectra is working with an American company on a generic therapeutic cancer drug, wading through the approval process with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But much of the work is being done at BioVectra’s three Charlottetown facilities. “We’ve completed all the development work on P.E.I. and most of the manufacturing requirements,” says Keefe. “We’ve collaborated with others on the formulation, but we have addressed all of the regulatory requirements.”

If the FDA grants approval, Keefe believes that taking the drug from the development stage to market, which he hopes will occur within the next two to three years, will be a first for Atlantic Canada. Reid points out that it will be an advantageous business move. “Since it’s a generic drug, if we’re first on the market it guarantees us a period of exclusivity that would allow us to capture a good piece of the market.”

The work on the cancer drug is a good example of BioVectra’s innovative way of diversifying over the years. It started out producing relatively low-value chemical intermediates, then moved into high-value active pharmaceutical ingredients, and is now producing final drugs and constantly developing intellectual property. Within the last year, it introduced five new products and filed two patents.

“We’ve always kept a focus on our financial bottom line, but diversifying has given us the ability to look in different directions and reinvent ourselves over the years,” says Reid. “It’s just good business sense.”

BioVectra is now turning its sights to the $2-billion biologics market, the fastest-growing segment of pharmaceuticals. It’s working on four more drugs that Keefe hopes will make it to market, but he knows from experience that’s not always the case. Still, the true innovator knows there is something to be gleaned from every project, no matter the outcome.

“We know things that will work and things that won’t work based on things we’ve done,” says Keefe. “You learn something from everything you work on. Just because a certain drug doesn’t make it to market doesn’t mean it’s a complete failure.”

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