Paras Biopharma: An Innovative Endeavour by Ashesh Kumar, Ushering Path to Developing Complex Biologics in the most Efficient Way

A sun-rising sector in the world, the biotechnology industry is on a strong growth track and is anticipated to expand at a notable CAGR of 8.7% between 2023 and 2030. By 2030, it’s estimated to be worth roughly USD 1,683.52 billion.

A major contributor in shaping global biotechnology expertise, Paras Biopharma (Biologics CDMO), a high-end, expanding biopharmaceutical and technology development company, has been playing a key role in sustaining the industry’s growth. Together with its “Finnish Excellence,” the company has a proven track record of serving prominent and innovative major pharma companies and medium-sized and small biotech start-ups from the USA and Europe to develop and produce small and large-scale biologics manufacturing batches.

The foundation of Paras Biopharma was established in the year 2013 in Oulu, Finland under the direction of Mr Ashesh Kumar. There is a committed team with many years of expertise dealing with novel and revolutionary recombinant proteins in both upstream and downstream manufacturing, and they are aware of the difficulties presented by complicated biologics. Paras Biopharma has developed and produced complex recombinant proteins expressed in E. coli, Pichia pastoris, and Saccharomyces for other clients from its cutting-edge 25,000 ft2 biologics production facility in Finland. Paras Biopharma can offer a distinctive end-to-end package for your development needs thanks to its complementary downstream capabilities and a fully stocked analytical laboratory.

The cost-effective solution offered by Paras Biopharmaceuticals can either address some of the most pressing problems in a production process or offer process improvement and scale-up capabilities. Because of Paras Biopharmaceuticals’ CDMO capabilities, either new drugs can be developed or, in the company’s own instance, the cost of medications can be decreased thanks to its biosimilar programme. They are further planning to grow their CDMO operations and sign a licencing deal for their biosimilar pipeline.

Tale of Inception: The Emergence of a Pioneer in Biologics (CDMO)

A key question that arose within this group was, “How could a company compete in the marketplace with other larger biopharmaceutical companies and companies from countries where overhead costs are lower?” To distinguish itself, the leading team at Paras Biopharmaceuticals also studied which biologics would provide major challenges in the following five to fifteen years, as well as how a firm would overcome the production difficulties affecting these biologics. ‘The technology for manufacturing biologics’ was the subject of the conclusion. The ability to compete would be greatly increased if the Paras Biopharmaceuticals team could create a portfolio of technologies that could address some of the major and critical production problems. These technologies would result in more affordable, higher-yielding, fully folded products. It was therefore decided to focus on difficult-to-produce proteins since this would be a niche market to operate in and there would be less competition by offering technological solutions. There is a motto at Paras Biopharmaceuticals that goes, “If it were simple to accomplish, everyone would do it.” As a result, Paras Biopharmaceuticals must set higher goals and strive to overcome difficult problems where the rewards are greater.

As a result, the Paras Biopharmaceuticals team spent substantial time working on these technologies throughout the first five years. As a result, the company has created a distinctive, exclusive technology platform that consists of the following:

• Diabrid™ Technology
• NobleCleav™ Technology
• BioMultifold™ Technology
• Cytofold StructQuant™ Technology

The development of complicated biologics is made possible by Paras Biopharmaceuticals’ cutting-edge technological platform, which also makes it possible to produce biosimilar APIs at extremely high and reasonable costs for scale-up manufacturing in the following categories:

• Osteoporosis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Metabolic Disorders (Diabetes) and,
• Oncology and onco-immunology products

The business opted to offer CDMO services for biologics in 2017 and 2018 to take advantage of its distinctive proprietary technological platform. The most cutting-edge businesses in the United States and Europe are actively receiving services from Paras Biopharmaceuticals at the moment. In order to show potential customers the kinds of challenging proteins Paras Biopharmaceuticals has been able to handle, the company will continue to work on its biosimilar pipeline. There are commonalities in the type of protein being created even if the clients’ products differ from Paras Biopharmaceuticals’ biosimilar pipeline.

Area of Expertise – The Key Offerings

Paras Biopharma is a recombinant biologics solution provider with experience and expertise in developing and producing recombinant biologics in microbial systems such as E. coli, Saccharomyces, and Pichia. They have extensive expertise using cutting-edge recombinant proteins and have achieved success in resolving similar processes.

Microbial CDMO Capabilities: Overview

With classified cleanrooms covering 4,300 ft2, the setup contains specialised features including media and buffer preparation, a live area (fermentation, harvest, and extraction), a purification suite (including a +4 °C cold room), final filtration, and freeze-drying.

Microbial CDMO Capabilities—Upstream

Paras Biopharma‘s expertise in the development of robust bioprocesses allows the client’s project to be efficiently and effectively integrated into a commercially viable manufacturing process. Our scale of operation uses fermenters for small-scale (20 L), medium-scale (150 L), and large-scale (750 L) production services.

Microbial CDMO Capabilities—Downstream

Paras Biopharma’s solid experience covers all aspects of downstream development. This includes the purification team, who automate the purification process while the scientists use their process optimization knowledge to provide the highest product recovery at a small scale.

Analytical Development

Besides their focus on developing bioprocesses with high yield and purity, they employ extensive in-process analytical testing to identify and control process-related impurities.

Tech Evolutions at Paras Biopharma (Biologics CDMO) Finland

Since Paras Biopharma’s expertise lies in the development of biological processes and production technologies for proteins, the company is also committed to the innovation of high-quality products such as biosimilars and other off-patent biologics and long therapeutic peptides.

As a result, the company has developed a unique proprietary technology platform that includes the following:

• Diabrid™ Technology
• NobleCleav™ Technology
• BioMultifold™ Technology
• Cytofold StructQuant™ Technology

This innovative technology platform enables a very high and economical production of biosimilar APIs for scale-up production in the following categories:

• Osteoporosis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Metabolic Disorders (Diabetes) and,
• Oncology

Pandemic’s Impact on Paras Biopharmaceuticals

As seen across the whole industry, a lot of existing and new projects were put on hold due to the uncertainty. This extra time allowed Paras Biopharmaceuticals to focus on some key issues that were being seen by the team in its biosimilar programs, and then these issues were resolved. The company always gives its CDMO activities priority, so this extra time was put to good use, which might not have been possible otherwise.

Dynamic Leadership

Dr. Ashesh Kumar, CEO & Director: Biologics & Licensing

The Director of Biologics and Licensing at Paras Biopharma (a biologics CDMO in Finland) is Dr. Ashesh Kumar. Dr. Kumar oversees the company’s biologics development programme, including the creation of biosimilars, as well as the organization’s biologics CDMO activities and capabilities (for osteoporosis and metabolic diseases). Before Paras Biopharmaceuticals, Dr. Kumar created and successfully obtained out-licensing for biosimilar technology for scaling up biologic and biosimilar production in Europe and Asia. Dr. Kumar led a team that successfully created and obtained a licence for a crucial biosimilar technology for scale-up production in Europe while serving as the head of Medipolis GMP Oy in Finland for six years and the head of the cGMP Biopharma team in Europe.