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BIO INNOVATION NOTES REPORT 20 LIFESCIENCELEADER.COM JUNE 2014 E R I C L A N G E R President and Managing Partner BioPlan Associates, Inc. If you want to learn more about the report, please go to bioplanassociates.com BIOPROCESSORS DEMANDING SINGLE-USE SENSORS By E. Langer Clearly, the industry feels the time has come for the introduction of better sensors. Bioprocessors Demanding Single-Use Sensors Best Practices: Performance measurements require better sensors oday 's biopharmaceutical manufacturers are expecting suppliers to innovate better sensors because regulators continue to require increasingly detailed and complex measurement of processes. Even as the prevalence of single-use equipment spreads, the quality of sen- sors is not keeping up; few single-use sensors are sufficiently robust enough to handle current requirements. Additionally, sensors are limited to relatively few basic analytes. Clearly, this is an area of opportunity that is in need of major improvement. And demand is not just anecdotal. Results from our latest study — the 11th Annual Report and Survey of Biopharmaceutical Manufacturers — confirm that the industry is still calling for innovation in single-use sensors. SENSORS NOW SIT ATOP THE INNOVATION LIST We asked more than 230 industry partic- ipants to consider the new products and services being developed by suppliers, and to cite the top five areas on which they expect their suppliers to focus development efforts. Of the 21 areas we identified, "disposable probes and sen- sors" were the most commonly cited (45 percent), which outpaced demand for innovation in disposable bioreactors (40.3 percent), cell culture media (38.9 percent), and disposable products and bag connectors (37.6 percent). What's more, the industry's desire for sensor innovation continues to grow. That 45 percent metric is the highest figure we have seen as of yet, up from a high of 30 percent in the past three years. Demand for sensors appears to be largely consistent across the Atlantic. U.S. respondents put disposable probes and sensors atop their list, while this area was second only to disposable bio- reactors for Western Europeans. That growth crosses both sides of the Atlantic. The 50 percent of U.S. respondents inter- ested in single-use sensor innovation represents a step up from the past cou- ple of years, while the 47.4 percent of Western Europeans expressing a desire for innovation in this area represents an even bigger uptick from last year's survey results. ARE INNOVATIVE SUPPLIERS READY TO RESPOND? With the increased demand for sensor innovation, vendors should be paying especially close attention to this area. To some extent, it appears they are. When we separately interviewed a group of industry suppliers, we found that more than one in six are working on innovation in sensors and probes in some capacity. Although this was not a significant step up from last year, sen- sors and probes were in the top quintile of focus among the more than 50 new product development areas we tested with this group of suppliers. That's an encouraging sign that vendors are rec- ognizing end-users' requests, though perhaps not quite to the extent that end users may desire. 0 6 1 4 _ B i o I n n o v a t i o n . i n d d 1 0614_BioInnovation.indd 1 5 / 2 1 / 2 0 1 4 1 : 5 8 : 0 8 P M 5/21/2014 1:58:08 PM