The rapid evolution of technology in the pharmaceutical sector recently has been evident to even those outside the industry. Where pharmaceutical companies once largely centered around a single technological discipline, today’s executives must navigate everything from small molecules and monoclonal antibodies to cell and gene therapy, mRNA and stem cell technologies.
“Running a biopharma company today is much, much more complex than it was 10–20 years ago,” Repligen CEO Olivier Loeillot tells The CEO Magazine. “Now you have to learn a new technology, a new type of market segment almost every two-to-three years.”
At the same time, the economics of drug development are shifting. With newer modalities often targeting smaller, more niche markets, the traditional model of spending more than US$1 billion developing a blockbuster drug no longer necessarily stacks up.
The result? An urgent need to develop and manufacture drugs faster, more efficiently and at a significantly lower cost.
“Innovation is in our blood.”
In such a fast-moving environment, standing still is not a viable option – particularly for a company such as Repligen, as it strives to outpace market growth by five percentage points every year. The company continues to pursue that target as it approaches US$1 billion in revenue, following a decade of transformation.
Not only that, but as the world’s fifth-largest bioprocessing company, Repligen is shadowed by its four biggest competitors. The fourth-largest alone is four times its size.
“If we’re trying to race and trying to copy what the others are doing, we’re never going to succeed, because they’re much bigger than we are,” Loeillot admits. “So it’s all about generating true innovation.”
Charting a new course
One example is Repligen’s XCell® ATF (alternating tangential flow) technology, which has become an industry benchmark since it was launched close to a decade ago. It enables manufacturers to run processes longer and more efficiently, with fewer interruptions and changeovers.
This continuous processing drastically improved upstream economics and trimmed production footprints. As a result, the company is now working on technologies to achieve the same downstream, with the goal of creating one seamless manufacturing process.
Another growth area is prepacked chromatography columns, which are used to separate chemical mixtures into their components. Customers increasingly choose to focus resources on core process development and manufacturing while relying on specialized suppliers like Repligen to deliver validated, high-performing prepacked columns.
It’s a business Loeillot says has minimal competition and is therefore growing over 20 percent year-on-year.
“Really it’s all about breakthrough innovation, creating market segments that didn’t exist,” he says. “Innovation is in our blood.”
Growing its stable
Cell therapy is another area that is emerging as a particularly important strand of this innovation strategy. After studying the market closely for six-to-nine months, Loeillot identified it as one of biopharma’s fastest-growing markets, prompting Repligen to enter into a definitive agreement to acquire BioLife Solutions, with the transaction expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.
BioLife’s biopreservation media is used to transport expensive cell therapies between manufacturing sites and patient centers, while its broader portfolio complements Repligen’s existing capabilities.
“We are very excited about that acquisition,” he says.
Together, the companies can build an ecosystem that delivers a true A to Z workflow for cell therapy that Loeillot sees as the key to better supporting customers. Such acquisitions have played a major role in Repligen’s rapid growth over the years, with the company completing more than 15 deals over the past decade.
“Running a biopharma company today is much, much more complex than it was 10–20 years ago.”
But as the company approaches the US$1 billion milestone, its strategy is evolving.
“Very often, you’re going to get the breakthrough technologies from the smaller guys,” Loeillot says.
That’s why Repligen is increasingly interested in making minority investments in promising companies – a strategy that allows it to collaborate on product development before potentially pursuing a full acquisition.
One example is Austrian company Novasign, where an investment has given Repligen access to digital twin capabilities being incorporated into the next generation of one of its systems.
“That’s something I want to do more and more over the next several years,” Loeillot says. “The good news is that we are bigger than we were, but we are still much smaller than the four big guys.
“A lot of these smaller operators, they are not going to knock at the door of the bigger companies because they know they’re going to be a drop in the ocean. So they’ll come to us instead.
“Our success has never been about being the biggest player in the industry. It’s about staying close to our customers, understanding where manufacturing challenges are headed and working with the best innovators to solve them.
“By remaining agile, collaborative and relentlessly focused on customer outcomes, we can continue bringing breakthrough technologies that make a meaningful difference on the production floor.”
