PHARMACEUTICALS
The fine chemicals sector remembers its mentor Former Lonza executive Peter Pollak signed the first contract and wrote the book RICK MULLIN, C&EN NEW YORK CITY
“He was always everywhere before anybody, and he knew everybody before I knew anyone.”
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | NOVEMBER 7, 2016
Pollak, shown here in 2009, was out front on every trend in pharmaceutical chemicals, from the shift to Asia to big pharma’s exit from manufacturing. ing annually with C&EN and other advisers to discuss the direction of the magazine and the chemistry enterprise. Another former adviser to C&EN, Roger Laforce, recalls that, when he was a “rookie” at the Swiss firm Helsinn, he heard Pollak speak at a conference. “He became like a guru for me,” Laforce says. Pollak visited Helsinn, interested in how the company managed to compete with a firm as large as Lonza. Years later, when Fabbrica Italiana Sintetici (FIS), one of Pollak’s consulting customers, was looking for a business director, Pollak called Laforce. Laforce got the job, where he succeeded in raising the international profile of the Italian active pharmaceutical ingredient maker. Joseph Colleluori, senior vice president of commercial development at Lonza, also credits Pollak for a career move. “I first met Peter in 1984, when Lonza became one of the first cGMP suppliers to Merck & Co. for an advanced intermediate,” he says. “My personal friendship with him and admiration were key considerations when I left Merck to join Lonza in 2013.” “I have always considered Peter Pollak to be the founding father of contract manufacturing,” Colleluori says of Pollak in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “It was a bold leap of faith as pharma companies at that time were still fundamentally manufacturing everything.” Since then, many firms have made the leap first envisioned by Pollak. “I always dreamed—hoped, expected—that big pharma would move from purely opportunistic to strategic outsourcing of chemical manufacturing,” Pollak told me the last time I met him, in 2009. “Now, a dream has become true—albeit 20 years later than expected.” ◾
CREDIT: RICK MULLIN/C&EN
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iding in a minibus back to years earlier famously landed what is conManhattan from Hovione’s sidered the first contract to manufacture East Windsor, N.J., technology a critical ingredient for a major drug comcenter in 2003, I felt slightly pany. The contract, concerning the manoverwhelmed. Having taken on the ufacture of a side chain for Smith Kline & pharmaceutical chemicals beat at C&EN, French’s ulcer drug Tagamet, was handwritI needed guidance on why a familyten on both sides of a single sheet of paper. owned company from Portugal needed a The Tagamet contract is regarded as technology center in New Jersey. The man the Rosetta stone of the pharmaceutical in the seat in front of me turned around chemicals industry. And Pollak, who retired to ask me what I thought of the Hovione from Lonza in 1999 to work as a consultant, venture. was out front on a lot of the changes that This would be the first of many discusfollowed. sions I would have on the custom phar“He was always everywhere before anymaceutical chemicals sector with the man body, and he knew everybody before I knew largely credited with its formation. anyone,” Villax says. “He had a passion for Peter Pollak, who died in August at the the industry, and he was very serious. He age of 82, literally wrote the book on fine started off as a scientist, so he always wantchemicals, “Fine Chemicals: The Industry ed to understand how people do things.” and the Business” (Wiley, 2007). The former Pollak, who received a doctorate in head of that business at Lonza, Pollak identi- chemical engineering from ETH Zurich in fied trends and advised leaders of fine chem- 1962, also had a passion for motorcycles. icals companies, especially European firms, It was on long rides through Italy, France, through the sector’s stormy formative years. and Switzerland that he bonded with Gian On the bus, Pollak generously worked to Paolo Negrisoli, CEO of the Italian fine clear up my confusion, explaining that Hovchemicals manufacturer Flamma, whom ione was the first European fine chemicals Pollak met through a friend of his wife. company to open a manufacturing site in Negrisoli says Pollak, who eventually China, in 1984, and was once again gambling joined Flamma’s board, advised him in his by building a lab and small plant decision to add pharmaceutical in North America. His enthusichemical production to what asm for the business was palpahad been largely an amino acids ble, and by the time we reached business. “He was instrumenthe Lincoln Tunnel, I had retal in the company changing ceived a crash course on my new its direction,” Negrisoli says, beat, pocketing a business card I adding that Pollak also advised would keep in the “active” pile. Flamma on establishing manuPollak was the topic of many facturing in China. discussions I’ve had in recent Pollak also viewed India as weeks. an important player. In both “You remember the ads India and China, regions that Lonza ran in the 1990s that said, have come under criticism as ‘Leave it to Lonza,’ with the carlow-cost options with questiontoon of the scientist with white able quality, Pollak had a knack hair? Well, that was Peter,” Guy for identifying the reputable Villax, chief executive officer of players. In 2008, he joined the Hovione, reminisces. board of Hikal, an Indian conIndeed, the Lego-like re—Guy Villax, tract manufacturer. searcher in the ad bore a striking chief executive Pollak also served on resemblance to Pollak, who officer of Hovione C&EN’s advisory board, meet-
