How Camida Tackles Pharmaceutical Raw Material Sourcing in a Changing Global Landscape

“Our job is to add value, rather than sell stuff and make money.” – David Anchell, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Camida
Camida are a specialist supplier of pharmaceutical raw materials, fine chemicals and intermediates to the life sciences industry, founded in 1988.
In the latest PharmaSource podcast episode, David Anchell shares his journey and insights on the challenges and opportunities in pharmaceutical raw material sourcing, emphasising Camida’s problem-solving approach and customer-centric focus.
David explains how the pharmaceutical industry has shifted from traditional chemical synthesis to biopharmaceutical production methods. This change has created new challenges in raw material sourcing:
“Biopharmaceutical production uses products that weren’t traditionally used in pharmaceuticals, like buffers, cleaning solutions, minerals, sugars. These were previously used as commodities, but now they’re critically needed for pharmaceutical production, which upgraded the quality needs.”
He further elaborates on the pain points this creates:
“Whereas the pharmaceutical raw material needs are USP, GMP, EP, etc., these products were made in hundreds of tons. I’m talking about things like phosphoric acid and sodium hydroxide, some of the phosphates. They were manufactured in huge quantities by commodity producers, and this industry suddenly needed this high quality. I don’t think that has been solved yet.”
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