Run The Race

Vice President, Asia–Pacific at Cytiva Francis van parys is driving the company to meet customers’ needs to develop viable vaccines against covid-19.

- Stephen Crowe

There are some who had to step forward in the race to develop a vaccine at a time when biopharmaceutical research is a pressing priority to tackle a global pandemic. Cytiva is one company near the front of that race. It has close to 2,000 associates in the Asia–Pacific region and is a global life science leader in supplying the technology, tools and services – “the pots, pans, soups and sauces”, according to Vice President, Asia–Pacific Francis Van Parys – to assist its customers in biopharmaceutical research, manufacturing and diagnostics.

Francis arrived in that position rather circuitously. He studied materials engineering in Belgium before joining GE Power Controls in a leadership program. He filled sales and marketing roles for about eight years before making the unlikely switch into GE Healthcare Life Sciences in 2009. His transferable skill, he says, was his experience in dealing with distributors and direct channels, which the life sciences business required at the time.

It was a radical change from a market mechanism standpoint because the nature and sophistication of customers and their technology are very different, so the change was not easy, especially with little initial credibility. “You have to watch your customers, your team and peers, and demonstrate that you can learn quickly and effectively, but I did enjoy the steep learning curve,” Francis recalls.

PANDEMIC PRESSURE

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, GE Healthcare Life Sciences was contacted by a number of academic institutions and pharmaceutical companies to help with their development of vaccines. At the same time, however, GE Healthcare Life Sciences was merging into Danaher Corporation, complicating its increase in production capacity to respond to the new demand.