BIO 2025: Building Relationships Amid a Rebrand

For the 2025 edition of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) International Convention in Boston, BioPharm International® spoke with Toshihisa Iida, director, corporate vice president, and general manager of the Life Sciences Strategy Headquarters and Bio CDMO Division for FUJIFILM Corporation in Japan and the chairman of FUJIFILM Biotechnologies, and Brandon Pence, president and chief operating officer of FUJIFILM Biosciences.

Iida and Pence’s titles reflect new FUJIFILM identities; on June 2, 2025, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific became FUJIFILM Biosciences, and FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies rebranded as FUJIFILM Biotechnologies (1). This followed the announcement, on April 22, 2025, of a 10-year, $3 billion manufacturing supply agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for United States-based production of biologic medicines (2).

“I think as you look at FUJIFILM going forward, our foundation is in the reagents, materials, and the processes that directly impact performance in bioprocessing,” Pence says in the interview. “And as we look to the future, both organically and inorganically, investments that will continue to be in that space will add value to our customers. And then keeping in mind that we're looking at ways in which we can support them in the regions they're operating in or in the regions where their patients are. And so, you'll see manufacturing facilities across the entire organization in life sciences spanning Europe, the US, Asia Pacific, and beyond that. So, it's an exciting time to be a part of FUJIFILM, and I think that the areas that we're focused upon are truly being recognized by our customers.”

Click the above video to watch the full interview.

Click here for all of our BIO 2025 coverage.

*Scroll below for a full transcript of the video.

References

1. FUJIFILM Corporation. Fujifilm Rebrands Life Sciences Companies to Strengthen Position as Strategic Partners for Life, Offering End-to-End Solutions. Press Release. June 2, 2025.
2. FUJIFILM Corporation. FUJIFILM Biotechnologies and Regeneron Sign a 10-Year U.S. Manufacturing Agreement Valued at Over $3 Billion. Press Release. April 22, 2025.

About the speakers

Toshihisa Iida is director, Corporate Vice President, general manager of Life Sciences Strategy Headquarters and Bio CDMO Division, FUJIFILM Corporation, Japan, and Chairman, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies. Brandon Pence is president and chief operating officer, FUJIFILM Biosciences.

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

Toshihisa Iida

My current role is, I am one of the board members, board director of the FUJIFILM Corporation headquarters. And my key role is, I'm acting as a general manager for Life Sciences headquarters. So all that is, covering all the life science related to the business domains and also, I'm acting as a general manager for the Bio/ CDMO divisions, or headquarters. And also I am servicing as a chairman for FUJIFILM, used to be called FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies. Now we are calling, rebranding, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies. So I'm Chairman for the biotechnologies operations. So I joined FUJIFILM in 1991, so I've worked for 34 years, almost my entire life. I'm the typical Japanese way. I'm working for the, I've been working for the one company.

Brandon Pence

This is Brandon Pence. I'm the president and COO of what was previously known as FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, in which we're now rebranding as FUJIFILM Biosciences. I've been in the life sciences space for almost 30 years. most of my time has been spent in a variety of leadership roles at Thermo Fisher Scientific, or Cytiva, a part of the Danaher business. I've spent a great portion of that time leading bioprocessing businesses or strategy and corporate development in those organizations, and have been, influenced by the tremendous growth in the biologic space over the past 25 to 30 years. I've been with FUJIFILM now for just under one year.

Toshihisa Iida

First, it clearly demonstrates how many, how much the demand is strong. So how many patients are waiting for innovative medicines or biologic medicines. That is clearly demonstrated, and it also demonstrates how the US onshore, large scale manufacturings are required to meet demand, to supply and innovate to the patient. So we are quite excited, about this partnership.

Brandon Pence

I think it's impressive when you look back over the last 15 years of the entrance into life sciences that FUJIFILM has made, and then the investment that has continued. And will continue into the future around how we add value in this space. We've talked a little bit about some of the inorganic activities, but organically building out manufacturing facilities and supply chain routes to our customers across three different critical geographies has been an important part to how we've driven success and, how we see the future shaping up.

One of the areas that I think is impressive about the investment at FUJIFILM is in looking at areas that add value and have a direct impact on the quality of biologics that are being manufactured. So as Toshi talked a moment ago about some of the reagents that we've acquired throughout our history, looking at cell culture and the business that was acquired in 2018 and now into the bio CDMO space, when you think about biologics, the cell itself is the therapy, or it's producing the therapy. And so FUJIFILM has taken an approach of what is driving improvements in, and the quality of, the biologic coming out of the process, and then ultimately ending up with patients.

And so we've started as an industry leader with a deep domain expertise. We've been producing cell culture media for more than 50 years, and because of that, we understand how that cell works. And so I think as you look at FUJIFILM going forward, our foundation is in the reagents, materials, and the processes that directly impact performance in bioprocessing.

And as we look to the future both organically and inorganically, investments that will continue to be in that space will add value to our customers. And then keeping in mind that we're looking at ways in which we can support them in the regions they're operating in or in the regions where their patients are.

And so you'll see manufacturing facilities across the entire organization in life sciences spanning Europe, the US, Asia Pacific, and beyond that. So it's an exciting time to be a part of FUJIFILM and I think that the areas that we're focused upon are truly being recognized by our customers.

And that's why you're seeing some of the activities that you mentioned a moment ago with the recent Regeneron project.

BIO is always an incredibly important meeting for our industry and for us as an organization, it's an important week as well. We've talked about the rebranding. It's certainly more than just a change in name. It reflects our position today and, in many ways, it reflects the aspiration we have for the future.

And, for me, there's a lot of opportunity to collaborate across various parts of the bioprocessing workflow and how we serve customers. And BIO brings together thought leaders. It brings together innovative companies, and it presents an opportunity for us to collaborate on ways in which we can impact the overall outcomes in this industry.