Technology Transfer Philosophy & Support
When I was a younger process engineer, I had the opportunity to learn from experienced process engineers about the best way to transfer technology. At Chiron, I was lucky to have overlapped to some degree with Dr. Renato Fuchs but especially Dr. Brian Maiorella and Dr. Charles Goochee. Brian is one of the smartset people I've met in the last 40 years, and was one of the most effective advisors Amyris had when we were in the thick of the farnesene development program. And in addition to being an amazing mentor to me for years, Chuck was the driving force behind the best technology transfer philosophy I’m aware of. In fact, Chuck wrote the seminal paper[1] about that – if you’re on this page, you should check it out, you’ll be happy you read it.
Among the many recommendations in that paper, Dr. Goochee suggests that there are multiple key mantras that are part of a successful start-up plan. I’ve been fortunate enough to be associated with many technology transfers – so I’m starting a brief series to help highlight the value of these principles. In short they are:
- Mantra #1 - Manufacturing is the Customer
- Mantra #2 - Process development is responsible for the process
- Mantra #3 - We do NOT do experiments in the plant
- Mantra #4 - Avoid “Pet Hypotheses” during problem resolution
- Mantra #5 - Use risk assessment to collect, analyze, and disseminate the right data
Mantra #5 we added on top of Dr. Goochee’s original four. Data is everything!
[1] Goochee CF. The roles of a process development group in biopharmaceutical process startup. Cytotechnology. 2002 Jan;38(1-3):63-76. doi: 10.1023/A:1021149914161.