Abstract
Biomanufacturing is a diverse industry, encompassing several well known processes such as antibiotics and fine chemicals. Canada has a long history of biomanufacturing which started in the 1920’s with the discovery of insulin for treatment of diabetes, launching what was the Connaught Lab which then went on to become part of Sanofi. Connaught Lab was also the first to develop combo vaccine making DPT in the 1940s and then playing a role in Polio vaccine development.
The talk will provide a flavor on the important groups of biologicals manufactured using animal/mammalian cells. Aspects of vaccine and antibody manufacturing as well as the advances in Cell and Gene therapy will be discussed.
Speaker Bio
Cynthia Elias is presently the Vice President, Operations at CCRM, Toronto. She has several years of experience in the field of animal/mammalian cell culture processes, including more than a decade of GMP commercial biological manufacturing at Sanofi. Prior to joining CCRM she held the position of Director, Manufacturing at the Government of Canada’s (NRC) Biological Manufacturing Center in Montreal, QC. Cynthia started in the Process development group at Sanofi working on new vaccines and clinical manufacturing and then moved on to commercial manufacturing. Cynthia was responsible for different departments within the bulk manufacturing of Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV). Before joining Sanofi, Cynthia worked at the National Research Council (NRC) in Montreal, in different positions of increasing responsibilities, from NSERC visiting scientist, Research Officer and Project Leader, leading a team working in the area of recombinant protein and viral vector production. Cynthia has experience in Biologics manufacturing from 5L to 1000L scale processes, including viral process for baculovirus, therapeutic cancer vaccines, AAV. Cynthia also has Regulatory and auditing experience with Health Canada, US FDA, and other regulatory agencies in Europe and other markets. Cynthia Elias holds a double Master’s and Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology from the University of Pune, India and, completed post-doctoral research at the Chemical Engineering Department, University of Colorado, at Boulder, USA. She has published several scientific articles in peer reviewed journals including book chapters and reviews. Actively involved in Biotechnology education programs in collaboration with the University of Toronto, York University (Markham Campus) and the University of Western Ontario (Adjunct Professor).