That’s Nice checked in with Guido Driesen to inquire about Capsugel’s ongoing transformation, the brand’s latest service offerings and drug development in general.

Question 1
Most industry followers know Capsugel for its leadership in hard capsules, but your company has become much more than that, hasn’t it? 

A: It absolutely has. Throughout our history, Capsugel has been at the forefront of innovation in hard capsules and polymer science, and we have built great relationships with customers in the biopharmaceutical and consumer health and nutrition industries. Over the past few years, we saw several opportunities to offer our customers even more — to complement our capsule engineering know-how and establish ourselves as a leading global provider of technology platforms for the design, development and manufacture of a wide range of innovative dosage forms.  During that time, we have made four strategic acquisitions, invested in enhanced capacity and capabilities and launched new technology platforms — making us an even stronger, more differentiated partner for our customers.

Questions 2
What are some of the trends driving drug development in general and the role that CDMOs like Capsugel will play in the pharma industry?

A: The biopharmaceutical industry is continually challenged to accelerate the pace of discovering and developing novel products that will help improve people’s lives. That’s why our customers are looking to partner with companies such as Capsugel that possess a fundamental understanding of APIs that comes from advancing thousands of drug compounds, predictive models and expert systems for selecting optimal enabling technologies.

Another important challenge is life- cycle management, and we are working with a growing number of generic and specialty companies, as well as larger companies, who are seeking line extensions or product enhancements. This has led to several formulation-driven innovations that are enabling our customers’ products to better serve the needs of patients and consumers.

And of course, we continue to see a shift away from blockbuster drugs toward specialized products with smaller volumes and more complex formulations.  These innovations require seamless integration from early development to commercial supply.

Question 3
What can you tell us about the new corporate brand campaign that Capsugel has launched?

A: That’s Nice and the Capsugel team spent several months gathering insights from customers and partners to better understand their needs and the ways in which they perceive Capsugel as standing apart from other CDMOs. We found that while the Capsugel brand was very strongly associated with capsules, as well as with deep scientific knowledge and product engineering know-how, customers were not always aware of our expanding number of offerings and capabilities in other drug-delivery technologies.

Based on these insights, we recently launched our new brand campaign centered on the theme of “Engineering Medicines to Life.” The campaign is designed to amplify Capsugel’s position as a differentiated, specialty CDMO partner with the ingenuity, credibility and flexibility to tackle any product delivery challenge in collaboration with our customers.  It also brings all parts of our organization under one name, and allows us to use the Capsugel brand to represent our full, integrated offering.