Strategic Advsor and Independent Board Director

Bryan Poltilove

At INTERPHEX 2026, Bryan Poltilove highlights a new technology as a promising point-of-use media manufacturing approach with major sustainability and logistical benefits.

Point-of-Use Media Manufacturing Could Cut Bioprocessing's Carbon Footprint by Two Thirds

Watch Part 1 of this interview on how the industry is shifting!

, Bryan Poltilove, strategic advisor and independent board director focused on bioprocessing and advanced therapy manufacturing, discusses 

technology and its potential to transform how cell culture media is produced and distributed.

Poltilove describes the core innovation as a point-of-use media manufacturing approach that stores dry powder components on site, requiring only the addition of water to produce media on demand. This model delivers what he characterizes as a compelling combination: the ease and flexibility of liquid media paired with the logistical and cost advantages of powder. The reduction in shipping requirements and on-site storage footprint, driven by the fundamental differences in volume and weight between powder and liquid formats, represents a significant operational shift for bioprocessing facilities.

From a sustainability standpoint, Poltilove points to figures suggesting roughly a two-thirds reduction in carbon footprint when comparing point-of-use distributed manufacturing of cell culture products to traditional centralized manufacturing models. He frames this within a broader concept of total environmental impact of ownership, encompassing everything from sourcing through production to disposal, a lens he sees increasingly reflected in industry best practices around green sustainability.

On the technology's current status, Poltilove notes that Krakatoa is only just launching commercially, though a prototype system has already been deployed across academic and industrial laboratories on multiple continents, demonstrating strong reproducibility, consistency, and reliability. He expresses confidence that scaling the technology to full bioprocessing environments will follow the same proven trajectory, with meaningful real-world impact expected in the coming months.

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At INTERPHEX 2026, Bryan Poltilove highlights a novel technology as a promising point-of-use media manufacturing approach with major sustainability and logistical benefits.

Bioprocessing veteran Bryan Poltilove discusses how biopharma manufacturing is shifting toward distributed, point-of-care, just-in-time models without compromising quality standards.

 Bryan Poltilove on Evolving Bioprocessing Manufacturing Paradigms

Bryan Poltilove, a strategic advisor and independent board director with over two decades of experience in bioprocessing and advanced therapy manufacturing, shares his perspective on how the industry is shifting in Part 1 of a two-part interview with 

Poltilove emphasizes that while GMP manufacturing and validation remain non-negotiable table stakes, the broader manufacturing landscape is undergoing a significant transformation. He draws a parallel to the automotive industry's shift toward just-in-time production in the 1980s, arguing that biopharma is undergoing a similar paradigm shift, moving away from large, centralized inventory models toward more flexible, distributed approaches.

Key to this evolution is the growth of point-of-care and place-of-care manufacturing, particularly in cell therapy, where modular clean rooms and specialized cell processing technologies are enabling production at hospital settings. Poltilove stresses that this shift must not come at the expense of reproducibility, quality standards, or regulatory compliance. The challenge lies in achieving greater logistical flexibility while preserving those fundamentals.

As a concrete example of innovation in this space, Poltilove highlights Nucleus Biologics, whose approach to cell culture media manufacturing he describes as a "Nespresso/Keurig-type model,” enabling on-demand, point-of-care reagent production rather than reliance on large pre-made lots. Having spent nearly 20 years in the cell culture media space, including leading portfolios of Thermo Fisher’s Gibco products for more than a decade, Poltilove called the Nucleus Biologics technology one of the most potentially revolutionary he has encountered throughout his career.

Bryan Poltilove

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