Purolite Customer Services: Downstream Process Development

As part of our commitment to customer success, Purolite provides a variety of technical and scientific services, including our Field Applications team.

Purolite’s Field Applications team is responsible for driving the implementation of Purolite Praesto chromatography resins and for providing technical, field-based support to our global customer base.

In this Question-and-Answer session, we sit down with Felix Solamo III, Senior Global Director of the Purolite Field Applications team. Felix brings over 25 years of experience in biotechnology and downstream process development. In this interview, Felix outlines the variety of ways in which the Field Applications team supports customers – from introducing innovative technologies to consulting on cost control measures.

Working with customers every day, the Field Applications team has incredible insight into the unique challenges faced by Purolite customers and the biopharmaceutical industry. Could you walk through the most common challenges you hear from customers?

Of course, the past few years have presented many challenges to our customers and the industry at-large. However, as we’ve emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, new challenges have continued to arise, including technical labor shortages, sustainable sourcing, and security of supply. Sustainability standards, for example, have become increasingly important to our customers in the last several years.

We understand our customers, and Purolite for that matter, have important targets to hit regarding sustainability and we’re here to consult with customers as they outline new initiatives or look to improve their current process to meet these targets.

Along with these emerging challenges, our customers continue to face restraints across various areas: including cost control, time-to-market, and process inefficiencies that impact end-product quality. Purolite’s Field Applications team regularly assists customers in all these areas, going on-site and providing in-person support.

Can you provide an example or a specific area in which a Field Application Scientist would support a customer?

Our Field Application Specialists work with customers to develop their applications, consult on process improvements, and reach the best results for ongoing manufacturing or when bringing new products to market.

Let’s think once again about sustainability versus scalability. A customer is looking to scale their operations. Put simply, they are looking to increase the amount of protein they can purify per liter, per hour. To do this, the customer is looking to increase productivity while managing operational costs.

However, alongside growth, the customer has significant sustainability goals – as many of our customers do. Our Field Applications team consults with customers, leveraging Purolite technologies we’re able to help the customer adjust their processes to consume less water while maintaining output and time-to-market, in other words, while maintaining productivity.

Purolite focuses on developing products and processes specifically for downstream purification, how does this specialization benefit customers?

We understand our customers require two core pillars in a partnership: deep expertise in chromatography and a suite of quality products. We offer both.

Our product offerings span the entire downstream process. Purolite offers innovative solutions for both the capture and polishing steps, for pH sensitive manufacturing, and for aggregate separation, to name a few.

In addition, our Field Applications team brings decades of experience to our customers, boasting industry and commercial experience, as well as academic backgrounds. Our Field Application Scientists are also based across the globe – in North America, Europe, and Asia. This structure allows us to be more present with our customers and support on-site when needed. Our nimble, collaborative team shares experiences and brings in learnings from a customer in one region to resolve challenges faced by a customer halfway around the world. With this global presence, we’re able to better understand our customers and reflect on trends without the restrictions of geography.

You mentioned the various backgrounds of Purolite Field Application Scientists – specifically commercial versus academic. What advantages come with this diversity in experience and how do customers benefit?

As I alluded to previously, a continuous challenge for our customers is balancing cost of development and time-to-market with end-product quality.

Our Field Application Scientists understand this balancing act because they have prior experience working at CDMOs or pharmaceutical companies tasked with balancing numerous demands – from shortening timelines to reducing costs. This is what it means to bring first-hand experience to our customers.

In contrast, several of our Field Application Scientists have years of experience in research and academia. Earlier, I mentioned several challenges our customers face, including a shortage of technical labor and a need to better understand new technologies for drug development. A background in academia helps our Field Application Scientists stay at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies which can benefit our customers in a variety of ways – particularly regarding sustainability practices.   

You can hear directly from Purolite’ Senior Global Director, Felix Solamo, by listening to a portion of his interview, here.