Manufacturing Safety Raises Concern

Last week Pharmaceutical heads met as a result of a drugs recall after a pill mix up of breast cancer pills. The drug, Fresenius Kabi’s Anastrozole, was made by the German company’s subsidiary in India. The ingredient mix up led to the voluntary recall of 7,192 bottles, each containing 30 tablets.

The mishap raises the question: Is there enough regulation to protect patients? As a new generation of bio pharmaceuticals go under trial in India those in attendance at the NGP EU summit were concerned that as demand increases, manufacturing practices may suffer, therefore higher regulations might be necessary to keep track of the manufacturing processes.

Biopharmaceuticals are made using living systems such as micro-organisms, plants or animal cells and if any mistakes or alterations like contamination of ingredients occur during the manufacturing process they are likely to lead to serious side-effects. India’s Drugs and Cosmetic Rules (DCR) don’t differentiate between synthetic and biopharmaceutical drugs. These concerns have been raised in the past; two years ago the FDA blacklisted the import and sale of 31 synthetic medicines that were manufactured in India. The FDA found “multiple, serious deficiencies” in the manufacturing processes.

“With every passing year, the pressure is building within pharma companies to go leaner and leaner across the value chain, from streamlining drug discovery, to more time efficient drug development to smarter clinical trial design and execution to leaner and leaner manufacturing. As the cost and time outlays necessary to bring a drug to market are forced to shrink due to many different factors.”

Giles Snare - Head of Life Sciences, Bioquell & Richard Lucas - Biopharmaceutical Process Specialist, Bioquell faced public and industry concerns head on. Given recent global instances of process contamination and the resulting serious consequences both commercially and regarding product risk, there is increasing focus from pharma and increased pressure from regulators being brought to bear on the maintenance of product integrity.

Contamination control is the primary focus within the industry at the moment, it is a complex process and an analysis of the potential points of weakness in modern pharma and biopharmaceutical environments will be key.

Joining Giles Snare were representatives from Pfizer, Simon Orchard – VP Biotech Operating, Sanofi Pasteaur, Pierre Fournier – VP Global Manufacturing Technology, Astra Zeneca, Eva Iden – Head of UK operations and head of Global Projects, Genzyme, Maarten Bas – Director Quality Systems EU and Johnson & Johnson, Johan Van Den Bosch, Senior Director External Manufacturing.
Unfortunately, changes to international standards and legislation move cautiously but efforts to streamline global pharmaceutical regulations are stepping up. Mandated by the increasingly global nature of drug manufacturing, harmonization can only help the industry improve efficiency, but its ultimate goal is to ensure that every human on the planet has access to the medicines they need and the committee has made it their goal to accomplish this.

Double Dip Fears lead

With anaemic growth and talks of a possible double dip recession the illustrious FST 20 (which consists of the 20 leading figure heads in North American Finance) were called to congress in California this week to discuss how the Financial Community can unify to avoid a repeat of 2008.

The FST 20 meeting was held at Half Moon Bay and was chaired by Laurie Smith, CTO of Morgan Stanley. Notable attendees included Charles Abonnel, MD of BNP Paribas, Mats Anderson CTO of NASDAQ and Bill Chenevish, Vice Chairman Ops for US BANCORP.

“In a previous FST 20 session earlier this year, we explored the key themes impacting financial services including risk management, innovation, relationship management, and restoring trust and confidence. At that time, the backdrop was an economic recovery which was just on the horizon. While there have been a few positive signs since that time, the horizon now is in fact anything but clear,” said a spokesman for the FST Committee.

Government officials have seen a series of macroeconomic errors and believe that growth is more fragile than predicted by data specialists. It has also been reported by the committee that productivity and government debt is healthy and although the pace of recovery has slowed it has by no means stopped.

In order to adapt and compete, the financial industry needs to continue to embrace strategies around streamlining processes, cost cutting, and improving customer service. IT is a central component to all these strategies and its role has become more important than ever to ensure success.

One topic concerned traditional RDBMS technologies that have failed to solve the challenges presented by the growing volumes of complex financial instruments since the crash discussions concerned the new class of applications for derivatives, threat analysis, and compliance.

“Traditional relational database technology has solved many of the problems of the past few decades. But a new class of problems has arrived – problems requiring new technology for 21st-century issues.” David Kellogg – CEO, MarkLogic

Such a cohesive response from the industry will no doubt help to stable the ship; they clearly fear the embarrassment of further bailouts.

Reacting to the Reform

Last week the leading names in Healthcare Finance met in Miami to discuss the causes and effects of the new healthcare reform.

Since the Reform proposal back in the spring there have been endless and conflicting statements outlining the potential pitfalls of the proposal, and the effect it will have on the American healthcare system. However those in attendance last week only deal with the facts and how they will implement a variety of systems to deal with the changes.

The government believes that by insuring everyone, the cost of healthcare-per-person will decrease significantly; at the moment those who can afford their insurance usually cover the costs of those who cannot. The problem has now been faced head-on and the CFO Healthcare committee believe that without the reform the problem would have continued to deteriorate.

The meeting began by discussing the critical strategies in preparing the healthcare for the decade ahead, Marc Holland – CEO and MD for Systems Research Services outlined the need for capital budgeting, the new healthcare reform legislation, and strategic IT decision making. Bill Donato – Executive Director Supply Chain Management and Carol Harding – Senior Director Supplychain management at the Cleveland Clinic also discussed how to compete within the ‘Age of Reform.’

“The Healthcare Supply Chain, from manufacturer to provider and ultimately the patient, can no longer be ignored or counted on to contribute small incremental savings through price over price and/or inventory reductions.”

The Cleveland Clinic itself has already committed to spending $100 Million in costs for strategic initiatives to continue over the next two years to excel clinically while driving operational excellence. They understand that in an era of declining revenues and spiralling costs, engineering supply chains and implementing new systems is the only way to keep up with the competition.

“In order to reduce the organizations cost basis the Supply Chain must be reengineered utilizing business practices that industry has been using for the last decade to respond to their provider customer's financial concerns. Expanding service lines, streamlining operations and reducing waste and errors will be critical to success.”

Also joining the committee were representatives from Catholic Health East, Jenny Barnett – Corporate CFO, Baylor Health Care System, Michael Taylor – SVO Operations, BJC Healthcare, John Katsianis – CFO North Region and Spectrum Health Systems, Jeff Lemon – President.

The new reform will inevitably cost more money. It would be almost impossible to provide an equal service to everyone at the current price. To cover more people, costs must be controlled and some cuts will be necessary. The Affordable Care Act will save Medicare an estimated $8 billion in the next two years and almost $418 billion by 2019. Affordable care will drive down the costs for everyone, and save the Medicare system, from fraud and inefficiency. The Congressional Budget Office found that health insurance reform will reduce the deficit by over $100 billion in this decade and by more than $1 trillion over the following 10 years. It is up to the industry to carry this out now the government has settled on a decision.

CIO’s Conclude Cloud

Recent reports have shown that companies are shying away from the public cloud due to security concerns, but how accurate are the results and what, if any, are the alternatives?

A committee of CIOs met in Singapore last week. The committee compromised of C-Level executives from the leading companies across Asia to highlight its continual growth of APAC and better understand how to utilize the increasing opportunities to encourage new technology projects, greater business collaboration and maintain growth.
Among the attendees was Alex Siow the head of business Excellence System Technology & CIO at Starhub and Avery Palos CIO Asia at General Electric and Kevin Noonan Research Director at Ovum opened discussions.

“As information technology leaders in Asia, we have the difficult job of representing not only our business interest in the region; but also acting as the bridge head for communications with our multinational parent organizations. Communicating and adapting bilateral needs between our local markets and global corporations is a critical skill for CIO's to master. Leaning in favor too far in one direction or the other can risk your reputation and make it difficult to accomplish your goals. By carefully balancing between the two worlds you can position yourself in the organization to be a key player for future growth and understanding.”

APAC has been facing difficult challenges as it grows and develops and doubts over the political and governmental structure of the region have been raised. To overcome this, incredible drive and enthusiasm to succeed has been seen by large enterprises and APAC can confidently compete with the US and Europe within the telecoms sector.

The cloud offers fantastic opportunity to transform business but discussing the right implications and techniques are vital for a cloud which works throughout the region and offers the same opportunities for all industries. The cloud really will be the next big thing in IT.

“We are at the beginning of the largest and most beneficial wave of change ever to hit the IT industry. This new wave, known as cloud computing, is a new approach to IT that reduces IT complexity, lowers IT costs, improves quality of service, and enables greater IT and business agility.” Tim Posney – Regional CTO APAC, ING Investment Management

Cloud computing is set to deliver these benefits by leveraging the efficient pooling of an on demand, self managed, virtual IT infrastructure that can be delivered and consumed as a service. It’s commonly accepted that the cloud is the future of data storage but as cloud security is called into question the CIO Committee announced that investing in the private cloud is preferable. The private cloud enables businesses to capture all the benefits of the cloud without losing control of your IT and without increasing your risk.

“Cloud computing is a transformative technology. It is built differently from traditional IT, enabling dynamic pools of virtualized resources. It is operated differently, enabling end-to-end service delivery. And it is consumed differently, making it convenient for IT organizations and for those they support. To unleash its full potential, companies need to recognize that cloud computing is a better investment strategy for IT, and one that can enable them to achieve faster and higher returns on their IT investments.” Harmeen Mehta – MD and CIO Global Markets APAC, Bank of America

Organizations such as GE - Avery Palos, CIO Asia, StarHub - Alex Siow, Head Business Excellence and Systems Technology, Bharti Airtel - Rupinder Goel, CIO, ING Investment Management - Tim Posney, CTO APAC and Pfizer - Sirsij Peshin, CIO / VP Business Technology all agreed at the CIO Asia Summit that they must cautiously prepare for growth while evolving their methods of technology implementation. In 2010-2011, CIOs will actively strategize their accelerated IT spending to balance cost and risk while pursuing significant growth. Really a Private Cloud is the only option.

4G or Not 4G, Apple Saying No

Despite rumours to the contrary, iPhone users won’t be able to get use a 4G network at any point in the next 14 months.

This flies in the face of earlier reports that Apple would be aligning with Verizon to enable Apple to utilise the 4G network. "At some point our business interests are going to align," Verizon Communications Inc. President Lowell McAdam said, referring to Apple. "I fully expect it, but I don't have anything to say [yet]."

With users expecting a shift transfer as early as January 2011, the news will come as a slight shock, although maybe not that much of a shock: iPhone waited for the 3G network to mature before they moved across in 2007. iPhone’s apparent stagnation could encourage competitors to drive forward and make further headway into the 4G smartphone sweepstakes; 4G-enabled Android phones already utilise Sprint’s WiMAX network, and dual-mode LTE-enabled Android phones will start to emerge for use on Verizon’s new network in the first half of next year.

iPhone are standing back on the new 4G, possibly because “Apple simply doesn’t want to be the guinea pig on new LTE networks that aren’t ready for primetime,” according to TechCrunch’s Steve Cheney. iPhone did the same in 2007 when they “waited to support 3G for one entire cycle, opting to release the original iPhone on AT&T’s mature 2.5G EDGE network, despite wide availability of 3G by early 2007.”

Other networks however are looking to cease the opportunity before Apple get involved. Oporators are pushing technology so that the infrastructure can meet demand, telecom communications companies are all vying for the right 4G network solutions. These will be discussed at a closed-door NG Telecoms Summit in North America, where representatives from AT&T and Comcast (among others) will have the opportunity to tackle infrastructure concerns and how to juggle software that requires a heftier bandwidth.

iPhone are clearly weary of jumping in with 4G, when they can “make a unified model that works across 3G networks on all carriers, and innovate with incredible new features like NFC which mirror what they accomplished with FaceTime on iPhone 4,” according to Cheney.

It is clear however, that iPhone, along with all smartphone providers will all make the jump to 4G, whether it is in 2011 or 2012, and companies will be more inclined to do so when there is better infrastructure in place to support and outstrip strong 3G networks.

U.S. Gas prices rise by 8 cents in two weeks

Lord Digby famously quoted that “Demand for oil is going to increase because of the massive expansion of the Chinese and Indian economies,” and he could not have been more accurate with his prediction. Such global demand for a finite fossil fuel is being felt across the US this week as gas prices have grown exponentially by $0.8 in two weeks bringing costs to $2.77 per gallon. But with the recent BP disaster within the Gulf of Mexico, the county knows firsthand the dangers of trying to relieve demand by mining in more obscure places.

To combat this issue, O&G20 committee the world leading authority on Oil and Gas technology solutions have selected to meet at this years Next Generation Oil and Gas summit in Austin Texas this November.

Greg Smith Head of US business for Repsol and Ronald Cramer Senior adviser from Shell are amongst the attendees of this locked down meeting. Petrobas (one of the most active deepwater companies in the world) are expected to announce investments in new fields within PreSalt regions of Brazil.

The announcement of the meeting has been anticipated by the US Oil and Gas industry for some time as potential exports to India and China are moving to the untapped coasts of east Africa and the Middle East.

Sesto Elemento, a new philosophy for the future of supercars?

Lamborghini is heading to the Motor Show in Paris next month with an ace up its sleeve. It is unveiling a lightweight beast; a monster road car whose weight-to-power ratio will, according to Lamborghini’s President and CEO, change the way Lamborghini produce cars forever.

The prototype in question: The Sesto Elemento (sixth element), which will be the lightest Lamborghini supercar (aside from the bespoke Miura JOTA), and will push Lamborghini into a new direction of motor-engineering, critically focusing on a lighter carbon-fibre frame to lessen the need for a bigger, heavier, gas-guzzling engine. “We are very focused on the future of our cars, and we think the power-to-weight ratio is the key element for the future,” Lamborghini’s President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann expressed in an exclusive interview with MeetTheBoss.TV.
“We are going to show [in Paris] a technological demonstrator [which] is about power-to-weight ratio. [The car can be summed up] with just four numbers. It has a V10 engine, 5.2-litre capacity with 570 horsepower, and it [weighs] less than 999 kilograms,” Winkelmann said.

The Sesto Elemento is significantly lighter than Lamborghini’s newest road-going car, the Gallardo LP 570-4 Blancpain Edition, which has a dry weight of 1340 kilograms despite boasting racing modifications like a racing spoiler and an engine cover optimised for maximum ventilation. The Gallardo LP 570-4 can hit 0 to 62 miles-per-hour in 3.4 seconds; an impressive feat completely overshadowed by the Sesto Elemento, which has “an acceleration from zero to 62 in just 2.5 seconds,” according to Winkelmann.

The key is power-to-weight. Both cars have 5.2-litre, V10 engines and both have horsepower in the 560-70 range. However the Sesto Elemento weighs 300 kilograms less, which means its power-to-weight ratio is an awesome 1.75 kilos-per-horsepower, as opposed to 2.38 kilos-per-horsepower for the Gallardo LP 570-4.
The weight and speed are more impressive when the Sesto Elemento is compared to other competitors. Ferrari’s new 599 GTO, which is billed as Ferrari’s fastest ever road-going car, tops out at 670 horsepower and weighs 1495kg, which represents a power-to-weight ratio of 2.23 kilos-per-horsepower, and ensures a 0 to 62 acceleration time of 3.35 seconds.

For Winkelmann, the lightweight body highlights the direction that Lamborghini is moving in. “The design is outstanding; it is completely made out of carbon fibre. This is what we see as the future of all new models. The new models of Lamborghini [that] come out will all have Sesto Elemento as part of their heritage.”
And as Winkelmann explained to MeetTheBoss.TV, with its unveiling in Paris, the Sesto Elemento will highlight how reducing weight is as important as adding horsepower. “It is more than a concept car because it is showing the future of Lamborghini, not [with] a single car, but [with] the technology. It is very important to our company to show the world that there is a limit to the increase of power. [So] we are looking into a decrease of weight [without compromising] driving pleasure and driving experience.”

Visit MeetTheBoss.tv for the exclusive interview.

West Africa to Benefit from GOM

Exploration and drilling for new deepwater oil sources is an industry that has received large amounts of attention from the public. The new perception of how difficult and dangerous deepwater drilling is, has lead to a number of changes when looking at the priority of distributions of funds. West Africa in particular is currently seeing the benefit of incidents like the Gulf of Mexico becoming so public.

When the upstream industry sees companies like JX Holdings all but running from the Gulf of Mexico region and Chinese National companies devoting investments to the West African region, executives have realized the need to come together and discuss the need to focus on safety when developing new deepwater drilling projects. The NG Oil and Gas Summit 2010 held in Ghana last week has become a leading venue for developing these topics more specifically.

The gathering saw executives like Dorothy Bassey, the Deputy Director for HSE at the Department of Petroleum Resources of Nigeria attending. Executives like Yassin Darwish the HSE manager of Danagas Egypt were discussing the fact that “China has had a major impact in the region regarding financial resources, but have lagged behind with low quality equipment and unskilled people.” Because “emergency preparedness and crisis management for deepwater exploration are the hot issues after the GOM incident” Yassin feels that funding can be redirected to focus on safer equipment, solutions and employee standards.

As standards begin to increase so do the types of solutions available to provide ease of exploration and increased safety. Companies like Boots & Cotts were in attendance from the risk management side providing strong focus around blowout contingency plans, while Expro was able to deliver high-end electro-hydraulic subsea completion systems from an exploration standpoint having been able to provide custom built systems from the new Takoradi base.

With China revealing recently that it is on track to have invested over US$100 billion into Africa as a whole while and additional 1600 private companies are increasing their presence in Africa it is no wonder distribution of fund is such a hotly contested issue.

The past has seen a frictional relationship between effective deepwater exploration and safety standards, and while spills have gone hand in hand with riskier projects, the GOM incident seems to have a wider reach for lessons learned when looking at the global upstream industry. The development and direct action of these key issues, when looking at feasible deepwater exploration and safety standards are highly discussed areas that have seen some dramatic adaptations to new projects in Africa, a highly unregulated industry. Private and public companies are looking to utilize these new areas to avoid the same mistakes experience by BP.

Potential Growth, Potential Risk

The Next Generation Mining committee has been formed to capitalize on the investment opportunities across Latin America and met in Sao Paulo to discuss the distribution of funds within technology, HR, health and safety, exploration and supply chain funds.

Mining in Latin America has seen unprecedented growth in 2010. New projects across Argentina, Chile and Peru are attracting a modern gold rush from far reaching investment companies whose decision makers are deliberating on the most effective way to manage such gluttony of investment. How will investment be distributed? And how will they manage the environmental impact of such a raw development?

In 2006 the announcement of $4.5 billion of investment into Argentina alone was announced and the benefits of these ‘big money’ deals began to pay dividends. Increased demand and the lower cost of supply have created an opportunistic market in Latin America. Chile still retains un-capitalized gold, silver and copper resources, and has seen over $10 billion of investment over the last couple of years alone. Exploration across the continent is set to reveal more opportunities throughout 2010.

South America has become increasingly attractive as its geological potential is still largely untapped. This is especially true in Argentina where 75 percent of the mining area is still unexplored (according to latest research).

“For businesses, mining is on the verge of an exciting change threshold with volatile markets and emerging new technologies, increased customer demand, a dynamic workforce and a fascinating balance of a business model that modern mining makes something different, and more specialized with the use of collaborative tools. Mining companies will have to take actions which are increasingly critical for the business. They can either innovate or stagnate.” Yvan Garcia – CIO, Minera Chinalco Peru

The greatest investment seems to be coming from commercial giants such as china where their growing economy and demand for raw materials has pushed investment. They are willing to pay over the odds for the right product. The NGM Committee is well aware that if the demand is prevalent then investment into the best supply methods will unlock the potential already expected from the region.
The meeting was held because of the risks involved with increased investment into such a marginalized region. Indigenous communities and environmentalists have aired their concerns and it is up to governments and industry leaders to create a sustainable balance between the two.
“The most important change is in the optimization of end-to-end processes of the supply chain, where the goal is not just to push the [natural substances] to global markets, but to respond nimbly to the long-term relationships increasingly sophisticated customer and market dynamics.” Yvan Garcia – CIO, Minera Chinalco Peru

Representatives such as Chinalco - Yvan Garcia, CIO, Goldcorp - Paul Farrow, VP Safety & Health, Agnico-Eagle (AEM) - Marco Camez, Superintendent of Information Systems, Rio Novo Gold - Julio Carvalho, President and Amazon Mining LTDA - Cristiano Veloso, President and CEO were in attendance at the NGM LA summit and are committed to the future of Latin American Mining. Can a sustainable future be achieved when growth is almost guaranteed?

Chile Earthquake Shocks Telecom Industry to up its Game

As telecommunication companies across Latin America attempt to increase product and service offerings, few regions are seeing the execution of these plans more pronounced than through the restructuring of Chiles’ communications infrastructure.

This has allowed for a significant buzz around the NGT Latin America Summit 2010 due to the convergence of Chief Technology Officers from the likes of Telefonica and Global Crossing. Other topics of discussion develop how competitors to Telefonica and America Movil are able to provide services when broadband infrastructures are dated and hinder the development of applications customers will require.

A feel good story is brewing as well. Chile has had the most strenuous year the region has seen, but has also given themselves a great position for growth and prosperity as the New Year approaches. The ability for Chile to hop and skip up to a modern communication infrastructure has allowed for a fresh market to be developed leaving an opening for more Telecom companies and suppliers to fill the void.

The benefit is also seen through the use of top tier technologies and eco friendly solutions. Not only will Chile see a powerfully modern city but their rugged rural communities will see the benefit and have the capabilities for strong mobile and broadband internet services, not to mention the effect this has on an education system.

With Mexico hosting the NGT LA 2010 executives are also focusing on how best to develop all regions in Latin America and provide state of the art mobile services that can juggle the requirements of a streaming population. This is why leading executives like Gustavio Marambio the CTO of Telefonica Chile, Israel Madiedo the CTO of Cablevision and Antonio Casucci the SVP voice Services at Global Crossing Latin America are meeting at the Fairmont Mayakoba in Mexico.

The closed door meeting of competitors and colleagues to inform themselves on what the most viable technologies available are, and to look at the future growth of Latin America, is a bold step that justifies the growth the region is currently experiencing.