Register your interest for 2027 here: https://www.cphi.com/europe/register-attend/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hln27cpw-cl-arto

Many in the pharma industry know CurTec for its white drums with the red lid, used to handle, store and contain the ingredients that go into medicines. CEO Bart van Berkel explains why pharma is the only industry CurTec focuses on.

This week on Making It In Manufacturing, Harry Sloan sat down with Bart van Berkel, CEO of CurTec, at CPHI Milan 2026, where ARTO was the official podcast partner.

In this episode, Bart covers:

(01:00) What CurTec does: packaging that helps pharmaceutical companies, API and excipient suppliers and CMOs handle, store and contain the ingredients used to make medicines.

(01:32) What carried over from aerospace: a highly regulated industry, long customer relationships, high standards of quality, and approval processes that take long for a good reason.

(02:59) What makes a drum or pail pharmaceutical grade: easy to operate in suits and gloves, screw lids, GMP at the core, and designs that can dock to isolators.

(04:16) Sustainability: taking material out, packaging that can be reused, and a redesigned drum with no handles or rubber gasket and a 30% CO2 reduction against CurTec's own products.

(05:27) Why CurTec, opened in the 1950s in the Netherlands, built a factory in South Carolina and moved all its American customers to it.

(07:35) Building greenfield to embed the CurTec culture of safety, compliance and cleanliness from the start, with a team of 30 and growing.

(08:52) How pharma supply chains are shifting, and CurTec's commercial team in Asia working with suppliers of APIs and excipients.

(10:01) Where CurTec could be in five years: very likely a facility in Asia, and new products that take it closer to pharma operations.

(10:49) What he wants people to remember: CurTec is super dedicated to the pharma industry.

Watch the full episode to hear why Bart wants anyone with a packaging problem to give CurTec a call.

Follow ARTO

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/artotalent/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kEcRZOiJChOoN1KF2n1ng

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arto.talent

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@artotalent

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leading-beyond-the-lab/id1783115575

Website: https://arto-talent.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@artotalent

Bart van Berkel

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bart-van-berkel-3824b3/

Harry Sloan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-sloan-605620154/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

01:00 What CurTec does

01:32 From aerospace to pharma

02:59 What makes packaging pharma grade

04:16 Sustainability and lighter drums

05:27 Why South Carolina

07:35 Building the CurTec culture

08:52 How pharma supply chains are changing

10:01 CurTec in five years

10:49 What to remember about CurTec

#MakingItInManufacturing #ARTOTalent #CPHI #CPHIMilan #PharmaPackaging #Sustainability #GMP #PharmaSupplyChain

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Register your interest for 2027 here: https://www.cphi.com/europe/register-attend/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hln27cpw-cl-arto

On the first day of CPHI Milan 2026, the Digital CMC Consortium launched: a pre-competitive, not-for-profit collaboration across the industry to digitise end-to-end CMC, founded with participation from companies including Novartis, Takeda and Thermo Fisher.

On Newsbeat, live at CPHI Milan 2026, Ruby Collier spoke to Luke Guerrero, one of the founding members and now Director of Operations of the Digital CMC Consortium, about the launch and what comes next.

In this episode, Luke covers:

(00:26) The launch: why biotechs, sponsors, CDMOs and consultancies have come together to solve the problems that can only be solved together.

(01:18) Why sponsor to CDMO technology transfer is the first use case, and what a frictionless transfer would look like: as easy as moving to a new phone, instead of typing in every contact by hand.

(02:55) How the consortium will turn standards into day-to-day practice: starting from the real workflow between sponsor and CDMO, building in pieces and iterating with members, and working with existing standards rather than replacing them.

(04:27) What the consortium wants from the CPHI community: the varied perspectives of sponsors, CDMOs and equipment makers across the whole CMC value chain.

Watch the full episode to hear how the Digital CMC Consortium plans to make tech transfer easier, so teams can focus on the real science.

Follow ARTO

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/artotalent/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1cSZVJ63yXJ3kqnVORyTbw

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arto.talent

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@artotalent

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/making-it-in-manufacturing/id1819731245

Website: https://arto-talent.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@artotalent

Luke Guerrero

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeguerrero/

Ruby Collier

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruby-collier/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

00:22 The launch of the Digital CMC Consortium

01:06 Why tech transfer is the first use case

02:46 Turning shared standards into everyday practice

04:18 What the consortium wants from the CPHI community

05:05 Closing thoughts

#Newsbeat #ARTOTalent #CPHI #CPHIMilan #CMC #TechTransfer #DigitalTransformation #CDMO #Pharma

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Register your interest for 2027 here: https://www.cphi.com/europe/register-attend/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hln27cpw-cl-arto

Quotient Sciences has announced interim results from its AI-driven clinical trial. After three years developing AI for formulation development, with 30 to 50% time savings, Quotient took the approach into the clinic to see if it could also learn how a formulation's composition relates to its performance in people.

On Newsbeat, live at CPHI Milan 2026, Ruby Collier spoke to Andy Lewis, Chief Scientific Officer of Quotient Sciences, about the results and what they could mean for drug development.

In this episode, Andy covers:

(00:25) The interim results: the AI appears to have learned the link between composition and in vivo performance after testing just three prototypes, which could reduce the clinical testing a product needs.

(01:25) How the algorithm learned: active learning with Bayesian optimisation, starting untrained, trained first on in vitro data and then on the emerging clinical data, with a safety committee reviewing every formulation it requested. When the team changed the target to rule out luck, it hit that one too.

(03:27) What it could mean for modified release products: fewer formulation screens, faster clinical development, and an in silico model of the drug product, like a digital twin, that could support scale-up and post-approval changes such as a change of site.

(05:05) What drug developers at CPHI Milan are most excited about: a first look at the pharmacokinetic data, and how the tool's visualisations map onto quality by design.

Watch the full episode to hear how Quotient Sciences is using AI to save time at every step of drug product development.

Follow ARTO

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/artotalent/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1cSZVJ63yXJ3kqnVORyTbw

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arto.talent

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@artotalent

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/making-it-in-manufacturing/id1819731245

Website: https://arto-talent.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@artotalent

Andy Lewis

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andylewis1/

Ruby Collier

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruby-collier/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

00:16 Quotient's interim clinical trial results

01:25 How the algorithm learned from each dosing period

03:27 What it could mean for modified release development

05:05 What drug developers at CPHI are excited about

06:08 Closing thoughts

#Newsbeat #ARTOTalent #CPHI #CPHIMilan #AI #MachineLearning #FormulationDevelopment #DrugDevelopment #ClinicalTrials

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.