RAQUEL FORTUNATO

GENIBET, CEO

THOUGHT

Leader

AN INNOVATOR OF INDUSTRY
“GENIBET´S GROWTH HAS BEEN FUELLED BY A COMBINATION OF PEOPLE WITH DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS AND EXPERIENCES”. – RAQUEL FORTUNATO, GENIBET, CEO

As Featured:

I joined GenIbet Biopharmaceuticals in 2006, as a Project Manager, shortly after its creation as a spin-off company from iBET, a private nonprofit research organization in Biotechnology and Life Sciences. We were going, as I remember being told by iBET founder and then CEO Prof. Manuel Carrondo, to leverage iBET expertise and experience in Process Development of Biopharmaceuticals with the Compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) well known and followed by our pharmaceutical shareholders. Having recently completed my PhD in Chemical Engineering, I knew nothing on GMPs and very little about such complex molecules and products such as recombinant proteins, viral vectors, or vaccines. It was also not totally clear in my mind how this young company was going to be able to transform science and knowledge into products and a successful business.

By that time, Oeiras was already recognized as an innovation hub for Science and Technology where you could find, within close vicinity, research institutes, start-up incubators and renowned national and international companies from areas as diverse as Information Technology or Health Care.

The road was certainly not as fast or straightforward as we could have imagined, but during the last fifteen years, GenIbet has grown to become a well-known and trusted Contract Development Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) supplying bio-pharmaceuticals for clinical trials to customers worldwide. Today GenIbet is one of the very few European CDMOs covering such a wide and diverse range of products, recognized by the quality of the work performed and the customer centric approach, enthusiasm, and competency of its team.

GenIbet´ s growth has been fuelled by a combination of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences such as biochemistry, biology, biotechnology, engineering, and pharmacy, both science and business driven. Now reaching a team of almost 60 people from Project Managers to Bioproduction, Quality Control and Quality Assurance, Specialists and Technicians, GenIbet combines a strict compliance with all applicable guidelines with a flexible, problem solving attitude, tailored for each specific product.

Our expertise covers a broad spectrum of biopharmaceuticals development and manufacturing, including biological banks of mammalian and insect cells, bacteria, yeasts and virus, cell and gene therapy products, live microbial products, recombinant proteins, RNA, and vaccines. GenIbet supports its customers on the development and manufacturing of unique novel clinical trials candidates covering a wide range of technologies.

Throughout this journey, on a personal level, I also have changed a lot. I took many roles in GenIbet, which gave me different perspectives and experiences. But there has always been a common drive: to contribute to the development of novel therapies and future medicines.

At GenIbet we foster a culture of scientific and technological knowledge pursuit, solid quality assurance and hard work, focusing on what is the best for the client, the product, the process and ultimately the patients.

I am proud and honoured to lead a unique team where everyone’s capabilities, critical thinking and scientific rigor are used to build the therapies of the future for the benefit of patients all over the world

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