The following article is written by Shao Jie for PharmaTECChina
In 1998, Mr. Nishimatsu Koei, the newly appointed CEO of Morimatsu Shanghai, led the company to a road to profit-making in the years that followed in succession based on his wisdom and providence, his understanding of technology, and his respect of talents. In June 2021 when Morimatsu was successfully listed in the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, he once again ambitiously opened a gate to future innovation for the company. In an interview with Mr. Nishimatsu Koei, he shared with us many classic successful business cases that had been achieved by Morimatsu International in the biopharmaceutical industry through targeted innovation, forward-looking arrangement, and sincere service.
Mr. Nishimatsu Koei, CEO, Morimatsu International
In recent years, China’s biopharmaceutical industry has taken on a booming trend as evidenced by the fast implementation of new technology and the accelerating commercialization process as a result of the incessant in-depth drug regulatory reform and the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the statistics for the first three quarters of 2021 released by National Bureau of Statistics of China, the pharmaceutical industry has achieved staggering growth (year-on-year growth rate: 29.2%). The average growth rate of the industry in the past two years was 15.4%. The export delivery value of medical and pharmaceutical products has shown a rapidly growing trend since the second half of 2020 and continues to grow by 70.2% this year. In the mean time, the demand for the expansion of production capacity is rapidly increasing since more and more new biopharmaceutical products are granted market authorization or even included in the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL). The fixed investment in China’s medical and pharmaceutical products manufacturing industry has grown by 14.4% year-on-year in January to September 2021.
The rapid growth of the medical and pharmaceutical industry will undoubtedly be favorable for the biopharmaceutical equipment market. In spite of the increasingly growing demand, China’s biopharmaceutical equipment industry is also confronted by challenges to upgrade technology and improve quality. Moreover, the introduction of volume-based procurement policy and other regulatory policies and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic also give rise to new requirements on the localization and quality of core biopharmaceutical equipment. Mr. Nishimatsu Koei, CEO, Morimatsu International said in an interview with our journalist(s), “being a multinational company with rich experience in business diversification in the field of core process equipment and modular engineering, Morimatsu has been endeavoring all the time to provide high-quality products and services to meet clients’ demands. In order to seize the opportunities arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, Morimatsu will integrate its experts and technology resources at home and abroad to make breakthroughs in bioreactor technology and improve digitization-based service capacity to meet pharmaceutical companies’ requirements on R&D and manufacturing of high-quality products.
Integrating resources
To open the gate to biopharmaceutical innovation
Morimatsu started to plan for its development in the biopharmaceutical industry as early as 20 years ago. Morimatsu started to introduce macromolecular drug equipment technology in 2000 when it was engaged in a technological cooperation with a Japanese bioreactor manufacturer. From 2008 onwards, it began to shift its business focus from small-molecular drug equipment to macromolecular drug equipment. It acquired Pharmadule and expanded its business scope from modular process to modular premise in 2011.
“It is now known that the acquisition is a valuable one. said Mr. Nishimatsu Koei when asked to comment on that deal. He pointed out the acquisition of Pharmadule had enabled Morimatsu to improve its competitiveness in modular chemical plant and introduce many pharmaceutical engineering experts whose familiarity with relevant technology and regulations and professionalism had helped Morimatsu to significantly improve its ability to provide consultation and implementation services of overseas project. Now they are partners in specialization-based cooperations. Pharmadule’s concept design and Morimatsu’s detailed design and construction of localized factory are complementary and good for the provision of competitive plans to clients. The plans facilitate pharmaceutical companies’ GMP certification.
“In European and American countries, the construction cost of modular chemical plant with our solution is 1/3 of that with conventional construction mode. Mr. Nishimatsu Koei emphasized, “we have won many cooperation projects in foreign countries over the years; in recent 5 years, we started to introduce the experience we gained from our foreign projects and achieved satisfactory results in China. For example, Morimatsu successfully delivered the first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine modular chemical plant in China, i.e., the Walvax project, in early September, 2021. Morimatsu provided one-stop services covering preliminary design, detailed design, construction, FAT, transportation, on-site installation and commissioning, and operation and maintenance of digital plant for effective promotion of the commercialization of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in China.
Forward-looking arrangement
In support of the localization of core biopharmaceutical equipment
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, new requirements have been established on the price, delivery speed and service level of high-end core biopharmaceutical equipment in China’s biopharmaceutical market. For Morimatsu, a company that has core competitiveness in process scale-up design and quality management of biopharmaceuticals, this offers a good opportunity. Morimatsu has a complete biological equipment laboratory equipped with bioreactors, auxiliary equipment and analytical instruments. By providing animal cell culture and microbial fermentation trial production services, seeking and optimizing the culture process parameters, and accumulating the necessary parameters for reactor amplification, we help customers successfully realize the industrialized amplification of products. Furthermore, after years of technical accumulation and successful delivery of many model projects, Morimatsu has achieved synchronization of its core bioreactor technology with the world's advanced technology, and its products have been exported to developed countries in Europe and America.
Nowadays, Morimatsu has become the supplier of choice for many leading biopharmaceutical companies, domestic or international. For example, Morimatsu delivered 6000 L bioreactor(s) to a world-renowned CDMO in 2019; Morimatsu has been awarded a contract for manufacturing a number of 20 kL bioreactors for the European factory of the CDMO. That is, Morimatsu not only has realized the localization of the core equipment but has exported this high-quality product to foreign countries as well.
Exploration Expansion
Provider of full life cycle digitization-based services
Morimatsu not only has rich experience in the digitization and informatization of its own enterprises, but also makes a lot of explorations on the digitization service of customer factories. We take the lead in practicing the concept of "digital execution of projects" in the industry, and co-build a "digital factory" with customers to provide digital services throughout the life cycle in order to help clients in their implementation of LEAN construction, production, business operation, and fast commercialization.
Traditional engineering companies or equipment manufacturers can only achieve end-to-end EPC. Morimatsu has carried out operation- and optimization-specific expansion on the basis of EPC. In the operation stage, we provide electronic batch records, equipment operation and maintenance, operation training, etc. We also provide services such as process analysis and fault analysis for optimization. Eventually, the results of these analyses will provide support to our design optimization. In addition, we can simulate, monitor, evaluate, predict, optimize and control the physical entity factory on the virtual factory platform. Through visual operation monitoring, status monitoring and fault monitoring, we can intuitively identify defects, locate faults and respond within the shortest period.
Conclusion
Morimatsu seeks to promote the long-term sustainable development of business by attracting and training of professional talents and by developing and introducing new technology in the biopharmaceutical industry. Mr. Nishimatsu Koei firmly believes that: “the value of a period of time is maximized when it is invested in the right man. At Morimatsu, employees are encouraged to read and study and education programs have been established through the cooperation between Morimatsu and domestic/foreign universities for offering employees with opportunities to study and learn to improve their technical and managerial capacity.
In light of the digitization-, modularization-, serialization-, and environmentalism-based development trend of the pharmaceutical industry in the future, Morimatsu will continue to focus on the industry and strive to make more breakthroughs in the development of flow reactors and microreactors by continual innovation and optimization in order to help pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs with higher efficiency and at lower energy consumption. Mr. Nishimatsu Koei stresses that it is an overwhelming trend for pharmaceutical companies to go global in line with the zeitgeist of China’s innovative reform and opening up policy and that it is hoped that Chinese pharmaceutical companies can build a gold brand for “Made in China” through their participation in international competition and their provision of highly cost-effective products and sincere service.
About Shanghai Morimatsu Pharmaceutical Equipment Engineering Co., Ltd.
Shanghai Morimatsu Pharmaceutical Equipment Engineering Co., Ltd (Stock Code: 2155.HK) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Morimatsu International Holdings Company Limited. Morimatsu, founded in Japan and taken root in China, has developed into a multi-national company that embraces globalization, masters core technology, and gains rich experience from project implementation in diverse fields including core equipment, process systems, and engineering solutions. The company has built advanced manufacturing base in China, established affiliates in Sweden, the United States, India, and Italy, built an efficient professional globalization team, and delivered a variety of products and services to more than 40 countries and regions.
