Page 70 - Innovation Delaware 2021

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Agilent Technologies: Putting Vaccine Development on the Fast Track
E arlier this year, a company working on a vaccine to fight COVID-19 called Agilent because it needed help. Fast. “They wanted us to accelerate the delivery of a product to them,” says TIFFANI MANOLIS, vice president and
general manager of Agilent Technologies’ Chemistries Division. The request for a speedier timeline wasn’t a big deal
for Agilent, which has been providing support for several companies developing vaccines since the pandemic started in March 2020 — and for other clients well before that.
“It was immediate,” Manolis says. “We looked at our staff and put them on the project.”
Agilent, which has a base in Wilmington and other sites throughout Delaware and the world, has worked for the past year to offer research support that will help biopharmaceutical companies understand the virus and then provide products that help make the vaccines more effective and consistent.
Agilent has had a strong presence in the biopharma realm for decades. But when a new challenge presented itself in the form of a global pandemic, the company was able to direct its substantial resources to aiding in vaccine development in a number of ways. In addition, Agilent launched its first COVID-19 detection test in early 2021.
One of the things Agilent has done is bring to market a new type of bioinert coating for instruments that
allows scientists to handle samples with
less trouble. The result is an ability to be
more accurate in measurements so that those working with the samples have a clearer picture of the virus.
“Different samples can have different characteristics,” says DAVID EDWARDS, associate vice president
of marketing for Agilent’s
TIFFANI MANOLIS
Chemistries Division. “Some are more sticky, for example. When they are being separated in a lab, if they can’t be separated, then scientists can’t identify them.”
Once scientists can break down substances more successfully, they can get a clearer picture of what they need to create an effective treatment. Agilent has employed its
expertise in this area before in cancer treatment research and was able to apply it to vaccine development. “It can help companies make sure they are making the same thing every time,” Edwards says.
The good news for Agilent — and its customers — was that the company wasn’t starting from the beginning in this pursuit.
“Vaccine research is not new for us,” Manolis says. “We already had some products on the market. We were able to figure out which ones were most critical to the project and accelerate them. We wanted to be crisp around which products were most crucial to the effort.”
Since Agilent’s main office is in Santa Clara, CA, and it has a presence in many countries around the world, this was a global effort. But in Delaware, research and development were done in Little Falls, while manufacturing and quality control occurred in Newport.
“The R&D work ... isn’t fully realized until R&D and manufacturing come together to scale the product,” Manolis says.
That collaboration showcases how Agilent managed to join the fight against coronavirus with such speed and flexibility.
“Because of the company’s culture, from the CEO on down, we were able to come together across all of our divisions,”
DAVID EDWARDS
Edwards says.”
—Michael Bradley
INNOVATION BY THE NUMBERS
1IN6 Employees
in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry
who work in Delaware and the surrounding region
>1.5 TIMES THE NATIONAL AVERAGE Delaware’s biotech R&D workforce concentration
$3.8 BILLION Total value of goods and services supported by the biopharma industry in Delaware
CLOSE TO
$1 BILLION Annual output of Delaware’s chemical manufacturing industry
10.1%
Job growth in basic chemical manufacturing in Delaware in 2018
1
Delaware’s rank among states for the concentration of chemists and chemical engineers
68 DelawareBusinessTimes.com
Source: Delaware Prosperity Partnership, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics