With over 25 years in the Life Science Industry, Bill has spent his career building successful businesses in highly regulated industries. He is passionate about contributing to something meaningful, something that changes people’s lives. Over his career, he has had the privilege of developing and bringing innovative products to market that have made a difference throughout the world. To Bill, success is only possible when you can create a shared purpose and mutual commitment with both internal and external stakeholders alike.

Prior to joining West, Bill served as the Asia Pacific Marketing and Technology Director Asia for FMC Health and Nutrition Division located in Singapore (the industry-leading provider of pharmaceutical excipients and food ingredients solutions).

Let the information flow…

Highlights from our discussion with William (Bill) Matakas, Vice President – Product Management, Elastomer and Container Closure Components at West Pharmaceutical Services.

William Matakas: “I think everyone is really energised, being able to get out and meet people again. It’s great to be back at DCAT Week… It’s been really refreshing and regenerative to get back together.”

Navigating COVID

As a leading provider of innovative, high-quality injectable solutions and services, West Pharmaceutical Services was well aware of industry challenges arising from global shortages of fill-finish capacity last year.

“West has played a vital role in addressing COVID-19, and has experienced an unprecedented demand for our high-quality components for use in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics used in treating the virus, as well as in diagnostic kits used for detecting the virus,” he says. ”From the onset of the pandemic, West has taken proactive measures to respond to these headwinds to ensure continuity of supply and mitigate inflation risks. We have done this by leveraging our 90+ years of manufacturing expertise and maximizing the efficiency of our global manufacturing network and our ability to flex our operations, including shifting resources from one site to another to address gaps at different facilities. We had to navigate all the things that COVID threw at us – it’s been a challenge, but I think we’ve all come through it a lot stronger.”

However, interestingly, Bill says that West has not witnessed a strong trend for on-shoring, and their supply chain relationships have remained fairly constant as the company emerges from the pandemic. This may be due to the fact that West’s global manufacturing network has a strong presence in both the US and in Europe.

Digital future

As one of the buzzwords of the past decade, digitalization remains a hot topic, and West is looking at it holistically, from the products they create to how they connect with customers. For example, the company is seeing a lot of demand for the integration of digitalization into a variety of devices. At the same time, the customers want to be able to track products coming into their warehouses, and product streams. As Bill says, digitalization is now simply a part of life. He sees its main advantage in enhancing information flow.

“Information flows easier, so it makes it easier to get things done,” he says. “A key advantage is in filing for regulatory bodies – that information can flow more easily, and it makes a big difference for our customers.”

Mobile communications, the cloud, advanced analytics, and the Internet of Things are among the digital innovations that are transforming pharma, including the generation, interpretation, and communication of data that pharma companies need for regulatory filings.

Collaboration

Earlier this year (January 2022) West Pharmaceutical Services announced a collaboration with Corning Incorporated, which included a multimillion-dollar investment to expand Corning’s Valor® Glass technology to enable advanced injectable drug packaging and delivery systems.

This is a strategic collaboration aimed at redefining the future of containment solutions, creating a truly integrated system that will de-risk our customers drug development and manufacturing process by providing a single product, one DMF and end-to-end support.” says Bill. “As you look across biotech and pharma companies’ drug pipelines, there is a growing need to provide system solutions to support increasingly more sensitive and complex molecules. And with that comes a changing and increasing regulatory environment that are setting a high bar of requirements for performance data on combination products at the system level. These regulatory changes are driving drug manufacturers to look to West to reduce risk by specifying a system of packaging rather than individual components.”

Valor® Glass is the first and only fundamentally new glass composition to be approved by the FDA in over 100 years. This collaboraiton combines over 200 years of expertise, bringing together the leading innovators in elastomer and primary packaging and unparalleled glass science, promising great things for the future and continued innovation around glass containment solutions.

Sustainability

Another key topic for pharma right now is sustainability, and Bill was able to comment on West’s commitment to sustainability, for themselves and on behalf of their customers.

“As a company with a mission to improve patient lives, we are equally committed to creating a healthier environment,” says Bill.” With a culture built on continuous improvement we are continually looking at our metrics and how we enhance our efforts in CO₂ emissions, waste and recycling, and energy and water usage. We also know that together we can make a bigger differnce and are partnering with our customers to bolster their sustainability efforts.”

West recently ranked 49 in Barron’s 2022 100 Most Sustainable Companies. They also received a #4 ranking in Investor’s Business Daily Top 50 Best ESG Companies as well as MSCI’s highest ESG Fund rating of AAA — which places them within the top 5% of the 93 companies within the healthcare equipment and supplies industry category.

DCAT Week is the premier global event held annually in New York City for companies engaged in the Bio/Pharmaceutical manufacturing value chain. It is hosted by the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT), a not-for-profit, corporate member-supported, and volunteer-led global business development association for companies engaged in the Bio/Pharmaceutical manufacturing value chain. Learn more at