Bringing New Products to Market
This profile is part of a series called In It Together, which shines a light on members of the PROGEN team and their contribution to the gene therapy community. The PROGEN team consists of life science and adeno-associated virus (AAV) experts who deliver high quality antibody and exclusive AAV products in order to solve research challenges within academia, biotech, and pharma.
In May, Silja Adam was presenting a poster at a gene and cell therapy conference in Baltimore, Maryland, when a customer approached. He wanted to find out more about human chimeric AAV antibodies, which are essential for determining if a patient would be a good candidate for gene therapy using adeno-associated viruses (AAVs).
Human chimeric AAV antibodies can be used as standards in serological assays to test if patients already have anti-AAV antibodies as a result of a previous asymptomatic infection from naturally occurring AAVs. Given that this is the case for between 20-90% of the population, it is crucial to test a potential recipient of an AAV gene therapy for the presence of these antibodies to decrease the chance of a rare but serious immune-related adverse event.
PROGEN is currently developing a serology ELISA to make it possible to do just this.
“When I let this customer know about our upcoming serology ELISA, he said, ‘This is amazing. I was not expecting to find this but it is exactly what I’ve been looking for and would really help me," said Silja.
“I have a passion for engaging with people, so that kind of feedback is great to hear. I especially love understanding their problems and finding solutions for them,” she continued.
As Product Manager at PROGEN, Silja takes care of products through their entire life cycle, from the initial conception of the idea to the different ways people use the finished product. This entails attending conferences to gather ideas from customers, who share their unmet needs, and conducting market research to determine which products are already available and to identify gaps. Then comes collaborating with other teams to agree on the basic requirements for a new product, after which the research and development department starts working on a feasibility study.
“New products are always a roller coaster ride of excitement because at the beginning of a project, you never know what challenges will pop up during the development,” she said.
Once the development is complete, Silja and her team continue the close collaboration with other departments to ensure the new product will best meet customers’ needs. She works with the sales team on pricing, the marketing team on a communication approach, and develops the product manual in close collaboration with many teams.
“I love to say that product managers get to do the best part of each department. And on top of that, we are also product trainers, fortune tellers (in terms of developing product forecasts), motivators, interface communicators, troubleshooters, and, some would also say, troublemakers,” she said with a smile.
Silja relishes the creativity and the variety of her job. At the moment, she is working on designing the packaging for a new product, a task she enjoys but never imagined she would be doing when she studied biotechnology. And she is always open to cooperating with new and existing customers requesting permission to use a product in their experiments, those looking to use PROGEN antibodies as part of their own kits, or for other reasons.
Currently, she is looking forward to the upcoming launch of the serology ELISA. For her, the main goal of this and all PROGEN products is to help customers advance their work in gene therapy.
“We take a lot of care to make sure to only develop products that serve customers’ needs because, in the end, we’re here to help them solve their problems,” she said.”
Interested in learning more about the PROGEN Team?
Meet Jesse Kay, Business Development Manager and discover how his supports customers’ projects.