Innovation only becomes valuable when it is accessible. With our new Application Laboratory in Étampes, we are bringing scientific support closer to our customers, empowering them to make faster, smarter formulation decisions.
Precision in Every Step: Safic-Alcan Opens its Global Pharmaceutical Application Laboratory in Étampes
In today’s pharmaceutical landscape, precision, speed, and technical reliability are no longer luxuries—they’re prerequisites. Formulators face complex challenges: evolving regulatory standards, excipient variability, scaling constraints, and the constant pressure to innovate without compromising quality or timelines.
It’s in response to this environment that Safic-Alcan proudly opens its new Global Pharmaceutical Application Laboratory in Étampes, France—a space where science meets service, and where formulation challenges are solved hand-in-hand with customers and suppliers.
The lab marks a significant leap forward in the company’s evolution—from specialist distributor to integrated technical partner.
“This lab is not just a facility,” adds Jose Lora, Life Sciences Group Managing Director. “It’s the physical expression of our mission: to connect supplier innovation with customer formulation reality, through proximity, responsiveness, and shared expertise.”
To understand how this new platform brings value on both a strategic and technical level, we sat down with Gaël Garnaud, Group Business Development Director for Pharmaceuticals, and Fahad Mouhamad, Pharmaceutical Development Laboratory Manager for the new laboratory.
Interview: A Strategic and Technical Conversation on the New Étampes Pharmaceutical Lab
What does this new lab change for Safic-Alcan—and for your customers?
Gaël Garnaud: It elevates the conversation we’re having with customers. We're no longer just proposing a product—we're providing a space to test, refine, and validate it. Strategically, it reflects who we are becoming: a partner capable of offering technical insights, regulatory understanding, and hands-on application support. In a fragmented and fast-moving market, having this high-level lab equipment sets us apart from our peers.
Fahad Mouhamad: From the lab floor, it means we can now simulate actual production conditions. For example, with the STYL’One Nano tablet press, we mimic compression behaviors of industrial rotary machines.
It helps us understand how a formulation behaves—not just theoretically, but in practice. This is exactly what formulators need when they're trying to reduce risk before going to full-scale production. Our high shear mixer is also the exact same model as the one used in production scale. So, accompanying our customers during scale up is a real possibility now.
What kinds of challenges are customers bringing to you, and how can the lab help solve them?
Fahad: Most often, it’s formulation optimization or excipient substitution. Clients might be facing supply chain disruptions, or they want to dual source or they just want to increase productivity. Our equipment—like the INNOJET High Shear Mixer or the PROCEPT Fluidized Air Bed—lets us recreate their formulation and propose alternatives that maintain or improve performance. We provide technical documentation to support the transition, so it’s not just a suggestion, it’s a consistent solution.
Gaël: On the business side, we’re seeing more clients under pressure to justify every formulation decision. That’s where we step in—not just with a solution, but with the data and rationale behind it. It’s consultative. The lab gives us the credibility to help clients move faster, de-risk decisions, and comply with increasingly strict regulatory demands.
How does this laboratory strengthen your relationships—with both suppliers and clients in the pharmaceuticals landscape?
Gaël: It creates a real triangle of trust. Suppliers see us as a value-adding partner who can showcase their ingredients in live, application-based environments. Customers see us as technically fluent—not just commercially driven. It puts us in a unique position to mediate innovation, support validation, and co-develop solutions in a tangible way.
Fahad: And it’s very collaborative. We test new excipient grades directly with suppliers, gather technical feedback, and then bring those insights to customers. It accelerates everything—development cycles, decision-making, and even market launches.
What type of cooperation enabled the lab to come to life?
Gaël: This lab was only possible thanks to strong, strategic collaboration with our equipment manufacturers: MEDELPHARM (STYL’One tablet press), INNOJET (High Shear Mixer), and PROCEPT (fluidized bed and pan coater). These partnerships were not transactional—they’re ongoing alliances.
Fahad: From day one, we built these relationships as long-term collaborations. We maintain continuous feedback loops on equipment usage, and regularly share technical insights that can improve user experience and performance. We're also exploring the possibility of co-hosting technical seminars in our lab, using the equipment to illustrate real formulation problem-solving. Beyond that, we’ve opened the door for technical knowledge exchange, ensuring both sides—Safic-Alcan and our partners—learn and evolve together. This mutual investment is what made the lab not only operational, but dynamic and future-ready.
Tell us more about the added services the lab offers. It’s not just a technical facility, is it?
Fahad: Not at all. We will host supplier seminars, where we will help clients understand not just a product, but the formulation thinking behind it. We will also organize technical conferences on topics like coating, compression, or granulation, and offer custom visits where we bring insights directly to the customer's site.
Gaël: It’s a full ecosystem. The lab is the nerve center, but the outreach is just as important. When a pharmaceutical company partners with us, they’re not just gaining access to products—they’re gaining access to a network of scientific, regulatory, and application knowledge, supported by dedicated experts across Europe and beyond.
Where do you see this going next? What’s the long-term vision?
Fahad: Personally, I see the lab becoming a reference point—not just for our clients, but also for suppliers who want their innovations tested and checked in a stable environment. It’s already becoming a space where ideas take shape before they go to market.
Gaël: Long-term, the lab is an expertise center. It’s our way of saying: we’re not just here to distribute, we’re here to understand, solve, and build. We’ll continue to grow the offering—more equipment, more thematic days, more technical data packages. But the core idea remains bringing formulation support closer to those who need it most.
With the opening of the Étampes Global Pharmaceutical Application Laboratory, Safic-Alcan signals a new phase in its journey—anchored in technical excellence, driven by customer proximity, and focused on shared success across the pharmaceutical value chain.
