Behind Drug Development: How AGC Biologics Brings Hope to Life

For Jean-Baptiste “JB” Agnus, the company’s purpose of bringing hope to patients fuels his work AGC Biologics.

“Each individual, each team member at AGC Biologics, we all contribute to our purpose to bring hope to life,” said Agnus, the company’s Chief Business Officer. “That’s what gives me a lift despite adversity or competition. It’s working with people internally and externally — partners, customers, and suppliers — that make most days very sunny.”

AGC Biologics, a contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) with sites around the globe, keeps that its purpose at the forefront of everything the company does by maximizing efficiency, quality, and productivity. As a CDMO, the company helps pharmaceutical innovators manufacture, develop, and eventually deliver their drug products to patients.

“We can start very early in the preclinical or clinical space all the way to commercialization,” he said. “That is what makes AGC unique. We are definitely a long-term partner that can offer early-stage services as well as late-stage commercial production.”

The drug development process is notoriously long, and AGC Biologics has set itself apart from other CDMOs with initiatives and programs and platforms meant to streamline this process through programs that reduce development time. These programs — named AGCellerate, BravoAAV™ and ProntoLVV™ — cut uncertainty for drug developers that aim to deliver life-saving therapies to patients efficiently without compromising quality.

“Those companies, they have one thing in common — they will need support from a partner, a CDMO partner like us, AGC Biologics, to take the drug manufacturing process from where it is and to bring it to the next stage,” Agnus said. “Time is of the essence, and that’s true across the industry: go fast into the clinic, go fast to commercialization because you have patients waiting for those new drugs.”

BravoAAV and ProntoLVV are proprietary platforms offering a templated approach to full-scale development and manufacturing of viral vectors for cell and gene therapies. Innovators simply provide AGC Biologics with a gene of interest, and these platforms and the scientists operating them do the rest, producing vectors in rapid timelines at clinical and commercial scales that meet global regulatory standards – helping ensure these therapies are advancing through important clinical stages and are achieving the quality standards needed to positively impact patients.

With the new AGCellerate program (pronounced ag-cell-er-ate), Agnus touts its ability to do what its phonetic spelling suggests – accelerate the process for innovators seeking standardized drug substance deliverables, in a set amount of time and a fixed price, to get them into clinical trials as fast as possible.

These three offerings present a unique differentiator of AGC Biologics — a dedication to efficiency and delivering on client promises — and accomplishing that is no easy feat. As AGC Biologics’ Chief Business Officer, Agnus works alongside several departments to find new clients and opportunities for the company.

“It takes a village,” Agnus said. “We are working with process development, quality, finance, with procurement supply chain. Everyone’s involved.”

As one of AGC Biologics’ core values, “Teamwork” is integral to achieving success and building the company’s community. With seven manufacturing sites across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, AGC Biologics holds a global presence but also an ability to connect with community members on a local level – Agnus refers to this dynamic as “glocal.”

“I am interacting at the global level, but also at the very local level. My job gives me the opportunity to interact with diverse cultures, people coming from different backgrounds,” Agnus said.

Here in Washington state specifically, Agnus points to the culture being built at the company’s headquarters based in Bothell as an example of the glocal collaboration that makes AGC Biologics so special.

“We are growing and building business processes and systems to drive operational excellence that support and serve our customers worldwide. This makes AGC Biologics Seattle an exciting, fast-paced place to work where you can be innovative, take risks, share ideas, and make suggestions at a local level that have a global impact. Team members are given development opportunities to grow and add value to our customers and patients that we partner to serve.”

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Sponsored by Life Science Washington and AGC Biologics