To support growth, PolyPeptide hired additional employees across sites, with average full-time equivalents in the first half of 2021 up by 14.5% to 1,026 compared to the prior-year period. With the IPO, a new Board of Directors was elected, along with the establishment of the Innovation & Technology, the Remuneration & Nomination and the Audit & Risk committees. The leadership transition to Raymond De Vré, who was appointed CEO as of the first trading day on SIX Swiss Exchange on 29 April 2021, was completed during the reporting period. As already announced, the group’s previous long-time CEO, Jane Salik, has now stepped down from the Executive Committee and will exclusively devote her time to her role as a member of the Board of Directors. In June 2021, PolyPeptide announced the creation of a General Counsel function at the Executive Committee level and appointed Christina Del Vecchio for the role, who will start on 1 September 2021.
Further efforts included the roll-out of an ESG roadmap to address environmental, social and governance topics in a more structured approach, building on the foundation laid over recent years, mostly at site level. As per the reporting date, four out of the six manufacturing sites have been assessed by EcoVadis and rated with silver or gold.
In terms of customer and staff satisfaction, both the annual customer survey and an inaugural employee engagement survey showed positive results, confirming PolyPeptide’s strong customer orientation and corporate culture.
Given the business momentum, PolyPeptide reviewed its investment plans to meet enhanced mid-term capacity requirements. It maintained its efforts to also address the emerging market for oligonucleotides with current customers expanding their activities into this new area, which has an industrial logic very similar to the peptide market. The group has hired an expert team and plans to serve its first customers around end-2021 with lab space and a pilot GMP facility currently under construction at the site in Torrance, California.