The Buffalo Grove Story — Expanding Nemera’s Manufacturing Footprint in North America

Talking with Sam Mulabagal

We recently spoke with Sam Mulabagal, Director of Nemera’s North American manufacturing operations, to learn more about the history and evolution of the Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills sites. Sam talks freely about current and projected manufacturing capabilities, as well as the role company culture, market trends, and digitization play in shaping the company’s mid and long-term vision. Sam ends by offering his insights about what makes Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills a unique partner of choice in the drug delivery device space.

First off Sam, could you tell us a little about your background?

I’m originally from India, but I came to the United States in 1999 to study at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After I graduated with my Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering, I spent two decades working in operations, in injection molding and assembly, in different plants throughout the world. This was mostly in the automotive and Industrial goods markets. When I joined Nemera in 2021, it was a new experience for me, mainly because it was my first medical device company.

How would you describe your role today as director for the Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hill sites?

My role is primarily to lead all departments, such as Operations, Technology, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain, EHS, and Quality. I have regular interaction with our customers, and internally I’m more focused on overall business improvement and aligning our manufacturing operations with Nemera’s global values. A lot of that has to do with expanding our team - today we have approximately 600 employees in our two sites, and the plan is to increase that number to 1,000 in the next few years.

As a business leader, what unique skills have you brought to Nemera? And how would you describe your leadership style?

I would describe myself as a results-driven, operations executive with a clear business mindset. That’s a unique combination. The decisions you make every day can affect the bottom line in both positive and negative ways, because Operations is a huge cost for any organization. That’s why having a business mindset is key.

As for my leadership style, I would describe it as collaborative and coaching, both of which resonate perfectly with the inclusive culture here at Nemera. Everyone in the organization is kept well informed about our vision and strategy, and how we plan to achieve our goals. My focus has been to ensure that there is ownership at all levels within the plants. If people own what they are supposed to do, the results are going to be much more positive than in a top-down approach.

Can you tell us about Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills, and the role they play in Nemera’s operations?

The Buffalo Grove site has been part of Nemera since its inception in 2014. When I arrived in 2021, our main goal was to stabilize operations, improve customer perception, and improve employee engagement, which was a challenge in the wake of COVID-19.

At that time, we had 400 employees and two buildings that housed our clean rooms and injection molding machines (IMM’s). Since then, we’ve regularly been adding more facilities to increase our production capacity, and we expect to have nearly 1,000 employees by 2027.

The Vernon Hills site was acquired by Nemera in 2023 and was added to our portfolio primarily to expand our North American manufacturing footprint. At 190,000 square feet, it’s one of the largest buildings across Nemera. The construction of the clean room and support structures will be completed by the end of 2024. And by the end of July 2025, when we are fully operational, we expect to have around 130 employees.

What’s important to note is that the Vernon Hills site is being constructed with sustainability in mind, and the offices, maintenance areas, gowning rooms, and cafeteria are all being designed to provide a unique and supportive working experience for our employees.

You briefly mentioned the challenges following COVID-19. How has Nemera been coping since?

We were no different from any other company in terms of the difficulties we faced. First was the labor market crisis. We also had a customer perception issue, and we had to stabilize our operations. So, we put together some innovative solutions that let us turn things around. My team has done an excellent job executing the actions we established in 2021 as we were coming out of COVID-19. And I can now comfortably say we have beaten the challenge.

As soon as this period was behind us, we won two CMO contracts, the largest ever for Nemera. We’re currently growing our Own-IP business, and I expect that the strong growth trajectory we are on now will continue for some time, thanks in large part to the rapid expansion of GLP-1 in the market.

What role do AI and digitization play in supporting Nemera’s manufacturing activity?

Data integrity is at the core of what we do, so digitization has been more impactful for us than AI. We are constantly working to standardize process across all locations, and this has become easier thanks to digitization. From our MES software and KPI management to equipment maintenance, digitization allows us to speak the same language across continents because everybody has access to the same information. This gives us a standard playbook which we can implement as we scale up our operations. I see our company becoming totally digitized in the next year or two.

What’s unique about Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hill?

There are three things that come to mind immediately. The first is that these sites operations offer our stakeholders a unique blend of CMO and Own-IP businesses. This makes us very attractive in terms of growth prospects and execution. And we’ve already seen that our Vernon Hills site offers a tremendous potential for expansion.

Next has to do with the maturity of our production system, from standardization across production to the flawless execution on our major programs.

Last, and most importantly, what really sets us apart is my team. The individuals I work with are able to translate the company strategy and vision and easily convert that into tactical decisions every day. They regularly execute on time and within budget, while remembering Nemera’s vision to always put patients first.

What’s one of the things you appreciate most about working at Nemera?

It’s right there in the tagline – we put patients first. Everywhere I’ve worked, whether it was in the automotive, Industrial goods, or other industry, each had its unique challenge. But what I like about Nemera is that we are making products that are actually making a difference in peoples’ lives.

Nemera will soon be a billion-dollar company, but it still has that family culture. We have six sites and we’re adding more, yet everybody knows everybody. We have various governance groups around the globe where we meet regularly to talk about challenges and standardization. Though I'm 6,000 miles away and in a different time zone compared to our corporate office, it doesn't feel that way. That culture is key. That’s what I like about Nemera.

Why would a customer choose Nemera as a partner for their drug delivery device?

Nemera has a unique position in the market when it comes to drug delivery devices. First, we are well positioned across all the important strategic global locations to serve critical market needs. Then there’s our extensive experience in device manufacturing, our product quality, and our openness to listen and to change.

Every day we go the extra mile for our business partners, and today they view us as collaborative, responsive, and as experts in the manufacturing space with a high level of quality control. We are very upfront with our customers. If we promise something, we deliver. We are very consistent on this point. We dream big, but are very realistic as well. If a customer comes to us with a problem, we always go back to them with a solution.

Any final comments?

I want to thank our stakeholders for believing in our growth story and investing in it. I want to thank my teams who strive everyday to make our dreams a reality. Nemera is a great company to work for. We’ve got a great future ahead of us and I look forward to being part of this next phase of our development. And finally, I want to thank our customers who believe in us and support us in this journey.