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In Profile: Tom Kinisky, president and CEO, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics

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Tom Kinisky, president and CEO, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics explains what is so special about the company’s manufacturing capabilities for the medical sector

Who are you and what do you do?

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics (PPL) is the world’s leading producer of the engineered, high-performance polymer products, serving virtually every major industry across the globe.

PPL gathers solutions combining material science, processing technology and design to save energy, provide protection, improve comfort and sustain the environment for a variety of markets.

Within our Life Sciences Business Unit we transform several high-tech polymers (Silicones, Fluoropolymers and other Thermoplastics) into different customised critical fluid management solutions.

Ranging from tubing to bags, connectors and filters (which move, store or purify fluid), to high-precision molded components, that are integrated into medical devices and pharmaceutical processing lines; PPL is positioned as an integrated resin-to-system supplier in the Life Sciences industry.

What projects have you been focused on recently?

The combination of the adoption of single-use systems in Bio-processing and the growing outsourcing implementation by the Medtech segment are a couple of trends influencing our strategic actions.

We are doubling the clean-room manufacturing capacity of our largest precision-molding plant in Portage, Wisc.; we are expanding the range of solutions for single-use systems and increasing our global coverage and at the same time are reinforcing key central functions like quality, validation and material science as we look to reduce the total system cost of our customers given the increasing compliance complexity.

What is your latest innovation?

The emergence of cell therapy as a segment of Bio-Processing presents manufacturing challenges of a higher level of complexity.

In partnership with Argos Theurapeutics, PPL has developed a customised solution that could change the way certain cancers are treated.

Argos Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company developing a fully personalised cell therapy that acts on the specific markers of a patient’s disease.

Because this technology is so individualised, Argos has placed a great focus on process automation to be able to scale up production.

Argos therefore partnered with Saint-Gobain to develop and manufacture the single-use systems used in their drug manufacturing process.

Under our joint development agreement, Saint-Gobain is providing Argos its expertise in material selection, custom design and systems integration that will eventually enable closed-system, GMP-compliant manufacturing of the Argos product.

PPL is currently investing a world class facility with the goal to manufacture and assemble products in contaminate-free environment.

What does it mean for the medical sector?

The lack of automation of current processes limits the commercial viability of treatments that have the potential to fundamentally change the way some diseases are treated.

By providing a disposable closed system that enables automated manufacturing, while guaranteeing integrity and cleanliness, we believe the adoption of new treatments can be accelerated and benefit a large number of people.

What are your future plans?

With the expectation that the favourable growth dynamic will continue in the future years and the increasing reliance on us from our customers we will develop several areas:

Backed by a proud heritage of product innovation, technological expertise and market leadership, PPL is confident in our ability to continue to provide the customised solutions our customers need.

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