BD and Suttons Creek Form Strategic Alliance to Streamline Combination Product Development for Pharma and Biotech
核心洞察
BD (搜索)'s ZebraSci (搜索) testing organization has partnered with Suttons Creek (搜索) to help pharmaceutical and biotech companies navigate the complex engineering, testing, and regulatory challenges of combination product development.
The collaboration addresses growing industry needs as pharmaceutical pipelines increasingly include biologics (搜索) and GLP-1 therapies (搜索) that require sophisticated drug-device combinations.
The partnership aims to reduce development risks, prevent late-stage rework, and enable more predictable pathways from concept to market while maintaining customer flexibility in partner selection.
BD (搜索) (Becton, Dickinson and Company) and Suttons Creek (搜索), a BlueRidge Life Sciences (搜索) company, announced a strategic non-exclusive collaboration on April 27, 2026, designed to help pharmaceutical and biotech companies more efficiently navigate the engineering, testing, quality and regulatory complexity associated with combination product development. The partnership brings together BD's ZebraSci (搜索) device-agnostic testing capabilities with Suttons Creek's combination product development and systems integration expertise.
Addressing Industry Fragmentation
As pharmaceutical pipelines increasingly include biologics (搜索), GLP-1 therapies (搜索) and other complex drug-device combinations, development teams often face fragmented vendor ecosystems and disconnected workstreams. The ZebraSci (搜索) and Suttons Creek (搜索) collaboration is intended to support greater coordination across development activities while preserving customers' flexibility in selecting partners and technologies.
"Combination product development increasingly requires close coordination across strategy, testing and delivery system considerations," said Patrick Jeukenne, Worldwide President, BD (搜索) Pharmaceutical Systems. "This collaboration brings together complementary expertise from both companies, helping customers reduce development risk and address regulatory considerations while maintaining choice and flexibility in how they move their programs forward."
Tackling Development Challenges
The collaboration specifically addresses the friction and delays that arise from fragmented development processes. "Combination product development spans multiple vendors and siloed workstreams, driving friction, delays, duplication, and regulatory risk," said Carolyn Dorgan, Vice President of Solutions Engineering at Suttons Creek (搜索). "This fragmentation often drives FDA data requests stemming from misaligned strategy and testing partners—our collaboration enables a more coordinated and efficient path forward."
Key Partnership Benefits
Under the collaboration, customers will benefit from several integrated services:
- Earlier alignment across strategy, testing, and delivery device considerations
- Strengthening integration and coordination across the planning and execution of key Design History File deliverables, which should reduce development and regulatory risks
- Faster decision-making and fewer delays caused by disconnected vendor handoffs
- More efficient management of external partners
- Objective device evaluation supported by ZebraSci's testing expertise
- Continued flexibility to choose the providers and solutions best suited to their program
Strategic Timing and Integration
Because Suttons Creek (搜索) often works with clients early in product planning and development strategy, the collaboration creates an opportunity to introduce testing and delivery considerations sooner—before timing gaps, supplier onboarding issues or misaligned assumptions can delay downstream work. At the same time, ZebraSci (搜索) can identify customers who would benefit from strategic and development support earlier in the process, creating a more connected model across the combination product lifecycle.
ZebraSci (搜索) provides objective, data-driven testing services that support informed decision making across feasibility, performance, verification and validation activities. The organization specializes in container closure integrity testing, device feasibility and performance testing, device comparison studies, and design verification and validation.
By addressing potential gaps and handoffs earlier in the process, the model is intended to support more predictable development pathways and reduce the likelihood of late-stage rework. The collaboration model aims to help sponsors move from concept to clinical review and ultimately to market with greater efficiency and confidence by reducing fragmentation and improving continuity between planning and execution.