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Four companies active in bioproduction have significant development plans which require the recruitment of numerous profiles. Three hundred positions are to be filled within twelve months. And that’s just the beginning.
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Good news for the Charleroi region: the BioPark, which brings together more than 80 players in biotechnology and biopharmacy located in the metropolitan area, is making massive commitments. In order to continue their expansion, several companies in this Walloon life sciences center are preparing to recruit a few hundred collaborators. “Over the next twelve months, we can estimate the number of people to hire at around 300 for the four major players in bioproduction”, rejoices Florence Bosco, CEO of BioPark Dev, the dome that manages the pole carolo sciences of living. But many of these companies have development plans and commitments that go beyond, over three years. To this must be added recruitments in research and development in other companies.
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The bioproduction of which Florence Bosco reports is somewhere the new Grail of pharmacy. It involves the production of health products of biological and biotechnological origin: monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, immunotherapies, vaccines, etc. These “biomedicines” are in full swing because they make it possible to treat previously incurable diseases. What was still a niche fifteen years ago is becoming a major segment of pharmacy.
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Varied profiles
Several BioPark companies participate in the development and production of these innovative drugs, which demand advanced manufacturing processes and new capabilities. They are what are called CDMOs (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization), that is to say pharmaceutical subcontracting companies that provide production for other laboratories. And this is where the second encouraging news comes in: the jobs offered are not only tailor-made positions for scientists with diplomas. “We are in a phase of permanent recruitments, with profiles of all kinds: operators, laboratory and production technicians, including project managers and quality managers”, argues Cédric Volanti, who heads the business unit Biopharma Solutions of the French group Novasep. “We are in the whole range of trades that exist in the biotech and pharmacy industry. We also have a technical department composed of engineers and dedicated to the growth of the site. ”
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“We are in a phase of permanent recruitments, with profiles of all kinds.”
Cédric Volanti
President Biopharma Solutions at Novasep
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Novasep has recently signed a historic agreement with the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to manufacture most of the active substance in the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical giant for Europe. This manufacturing will be done on the Belgian site of Novasep, in Seneffe. Nearly a hundred new jobs will be created quickly, not counting the 45 positions open in other activities of the company.
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MaSThercell, champion of job creation
The company that seems to offer the most important prospects in terms of recruitment is MaSTherCell, recently acquired by the American company Catalent. Specializing in the industrialization and production of cell therapies, MaSTherCell is increasing the size of its existing facilities thanks to an extension of 5,700 m² in Gosselies. Some 300 jobs are to be filled over a 3-year horizon.
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Not far from there, Delphi Genetics has already quadrupled its production capacities to meet very strong demand. This company, chaired by entrepreneur François Blondel, has developed an original technology to produce plasmid DNA and recombinant proteins for gene therapy. “Last year, we hired an average of one person every two weeks,” said Cédric Szpirer, founder and scientific director of the company. “There are 35 of us and we still have a dozen commitments planned. That is without counting a project to develop a treatment against Covid-19” which according to him will undoubtedly lead to “other new jobs”.
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The fourth CDMO to recruit is Univercells, a company that also has strong ambitions. The company, which has positioned itself on the manufacture of low-cost vaccines, has signed a strategic collaboration with two European companies for the development and manufacture of a vaccine against Covid-19. The founder and CEO Hugues Bultot spoke on this occasion of the creation of dozens of jobs by Univercells and its subsidiary Exothera, on their new Jumet site.
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