Cost of Goods (COGS) & Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA)

Once the required client inputs are provided — or generated through Esco Aster Research Services — Esco Aster will provide:

Deliverables

• Customized COGS and TEA models tailored to the client’s process, modality, commercial assumptions and business plan 
• Manufacturing technology roadmaps with scalability, automation, digitalization strategies, process intensification to meet COGs and future expansion planning. Cost optimization reports incorporating emerging manufacturing technologies. 
• Financial forecasting models with revenue projections, pricing strategy analysis   reimbursement assumptions based on HTA/Insurance/Medical subsidies assumptions, sensitivity analyses. 
• Economic risk and gap analysis. Reports identifying: Cost reduction opportunities, process bottlenecks, technology risks, automation opportunities, long-term sustainability considerations 
• Commercialization and investment milestone planning frameworks 
• Manufacturing strategy assessments. Our analysis helps clients evaluate build-versus-buy analyses. Estimated CapEx models for greenfield, brownfield, modular, containerized, or hybrid facilities 

This may include hybrid models where early manufacturing is outsourced while commercial manufacturing facilities are developed designed & built in parallel.

Manufacturing cost optimization is particularly important for advanced therapies due to:

• Complex unit operations 
• Specialized cell processing requirements 
• Skilled labor demands 
• GMP facility infrastructure costs 
• Regulatory compliance burdens 

A COGS/TEA assessment may identify opportunities for:

• Process intensification 
• Walk-away automation 
• AI-enabled autonomous manufacturing 
• Strategic outsourcing 
• Continuous manufacturing 
• Digitalization and smart factory integration 

Grant Agencies & Public Institutions

Grantors benefit by ensuring funded technologies adopt scalable, economically sustainable manufacturing strategies that maximize capital efficiency and translational impact.

• Ensure efficient use of grant funding 
• Support scalable and economically viable technologies 
• Improve translation from research to commercialization 

Biotech Companies & Startups

• Biotech companies and startups can execute development programs with greater confidence using robust COGS/TEA models to support:
• Improve investor confidence in investing in company
• Build credible commercialization roadmaps 
• Optimize manufacturing economics 
• Accelerate fundraising readiness 
• Pricing strategies for larger serviceable obtainable market from total addressable market.

Esco Aster also utilizes client specific models in combination with our Strategic Capital (hyperlink) fundraising as a service

Biotech Companies & Startups

Investors can confidently move forwards with clear use of proceeds and milestone-based investment to commit funding whilst knowing that the cogs of final product and costs structure ensuring the final commercialized product from the biotech will be attractive for potential acquirer. A robust COGS analysis demonstrates financial acumen improving confidence of all stakeholders to support fundraising efforts and investor returns.

Cogs/TEA analysis can also be used to help acquirers determine fair licensing fee and acquisition costs of biotech company as well as determining final product cost competitive against other competitors in same or other modalities to determine competitiveness of acquiring biotech company as a toolkit in conjunction with our Business Development (hyperlink) as a service.

• Clear visibility into use of proceeds 
• Milestone-based investment planning 
• Understanding of commercial scalability 
• Improved acquisition attractiveness 
• Greater confidence in long-term margins and reimbursement viability 
• Improved acquisition attractiveness 

Academic Institutions & Technology Transfer Offices

Academics, technology transfer offices, and IP stakeholders benefit from implementing linearly scalable manufacturing technologies from the earliest stages of development, improving translational potential, facilitating outward licensing, and strengthening commercialization readiness.

• Enable linearly scalable technologies from R&D to Manufacturing hence improving licensing attractiveness as licensors do not need to repeat key experiments and can immediately translate benchwork into products.
• Seminal publications on technology and in vitro in vivo data is already collected utilizing linearly scalable technology allowing ease of translation to support translational and commercialization strategies 
• Align IP development with manufacturing scalability allowing IP to potentially be more easily licensed out since the data is likely repeatable.

Healthcare Systems & Payers

• Improve affordability and accessibility to lifesaving medicines to increase healthspan, longevity and wellness not just lifespan especially for single payor insurance systems.
• Improve entering of vaccines into national health immunization programs
• Improve and accelerate healthcare technology assessment
• Support sustainable reimbursement models 

A strong COGS analysis demonstrates operational and financial discipline while increasing confidence in commercialization success and long-term investor returns.

COGS/TEA analyses may also support:

• Licensing negotiations 
• Acquisition valuation assessments 
• Competitive benchmarking against alternative modalities 
• Strategic business development initiatives

Ensuring that final patient costs for life-saving medicines and therapies remain affordable is especially important for single-payer insurance systems, government medical subsidy programs, and private insurers seeking to provide equitable access to medicines, vaccines, and therapies.

iPSC & MSC Manufacturing

Esco Aster provides cost modelling insights utilizing high-throughput automation and time-motion studies to automate manual cell culture operations, typically delivered through our MSAT-as-a-Service and Research Services offerings.

Esco Aster can develop conceptual facility designs through digital twin modelling, with estimated CapEx based on the dose volumes required to meet specific cost targets, ensuring that the final product is viable for broad social implementation.

Automation is applicable to a variety of cell types, as well as 2D, spheroid, and embryoid body culture formats, particularly for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and embryonic stem cells (ESCs).

Esco Aster provides cost modelling, front-end engineering, and automation studies including:

• High-throughput automation studies
• Labor and time-motion analysis
• Digital twin facility simulations
• Cost-per-dose modelling
• Scale-up planning for 2D, spheroid, and embryoid body formats
  

Applicable cell types include:

• iPSCs
• ESCs
• MSCs
• Cell derivatives
  

Cost modelling for cell and gene therapy is particularly important to ensure that the final product remains cost-competitive against other drug modalities, including bispecific T-cell engagers, Tri specific monoclonal antibodies, peptides, nuclear medicines, antibody–drug conjugates, and other conjugate therapies.

COGS modelling is essential to determine the competitiveness and scalability of:

• Autologous versus allogeneic therapies
• Ex vivo versus in vivo approaches
• In vivo viral vector versus non-viral delivery systems (including LNP, exosome, and hybrid delivery strategies)

Given the high cost of gene therapy manufacturing and the significant yield losses associated with downstream processing, detailed economic modelling of AAV manufacturing is critical to ensure commercial competitiveness and acquisition attractiveness.

We evaluate:

• Dose economics
• Yield losses
• Vector manufacturing costs
• Downstream recovery efficiency
  
• Automation opportunities
  

In human vaccines, cost modelling is important for determining healthcare economics and informing decisions on whether a vaccine should be included in a national health immunization program — weighed against the cost of pandemic or disease burden — or subsidized for specific populations such as the elderly (e.g., influenza vaccines) or adolescents (e.g., HPV vaccines for cancer prevention), where population-level implementation economics are a critical consideration.

Vaccine economics are critical in evaluating:

• National immunization programs
• Pandemic preparedness
• Elderly subsidy programs, such as for influenza vaccines
• HPV and influenza vaccination strategies
• Cost versus disease burden analysis for healthcare economics

This is particularly relevant for vaccines such as influenza and HPV.

In veterinary and livestock health, manufacturing economics are critical to ensuring affordable access while reducing zoonotic disease risks.

Cost reduction is especially important in animal health to ensure broad access to affordable vaccines for both companion animals and livestock that support global food and nutrition systems. Beyond economics, effective vaccination programs are essential for preventing zoonotic disease transmission from animals to humans — increasingly pertinent given that over 90% of emerging human infectious diseases originate from animal sources. Maintaining control of viral threats through scalable and cost-effective vaccination strategies may help prevent future “Disease X” pandemics.

Companion animals are also playing an increasingly important societal role — not only as family members in modern households, but also as essential working animals across agriculture, military operations, security, mobility assistance for the visually impaired, and therapeutic care.

Esco Aster’s perfusion-enabled Tide Motion® bioreactor platform, combined with high-productivity adherent CHO/HEK antibody generation systems and integrated simulated moving bed (SMB) or real moving bed (RMB) column less single-use continuous chromatography platforms, enables next-generation process intensification. This integrated approach supports higher productivity, lower cost of goods (COGS), a reduced facility footprint, and scalable continuous biomanufacturing for advanced animal health biologics and vaccines.

In veterinary and livestock applications, manufacturing economics are vital to:

• Maintain affordability
• Prevent zoonotic disease spread
• Support food security
• Enable scalable vaccine production

This is increasingly important given that many emerging infectious diseases originate from animal reservoirs.

Applications include:

• Livestock vaccines
• Companion animal therapeutics
• Monoclonal antibodies
• Continuous bioprocessing systems

Esco Aster’s Tide Motion® perfusion technologies and process intensification strategies can support high-productivity adherent CHO/HEK manufacturing integrated with continuous downstream purification systems.

With evolving regulatory pathways and reduced bridging study requirements in certain jurisdictions, process intensification and continuous manufacturing are becoming increasingly important for biosimilar and biobetter development.

Esco Aster supports:

• Continuous upstream and downstream intensified process integration
• Cost reduction strategies relevant to developing countries, where single-use systems may carry a higher relative cost compared to markets with lower-cost qualified biotechnicians

COGS/TEA modelling supports the optimization of these advanced manufacturing approaches to ensure that the final commercial product is cost-competitive with the originator.

Dermocosmetics — including cosmeceuticals, medicated cosmetics, and quasi-drugs — represent an emerging category of science-driven, clinically validated dermatology products.

For dermatology-driven cosmetic products, TEA modelling supports:

• Manufacturing scalability
• Ingredient cost optimization
• Pricing strategies
• Consumer accessibility
• Commercial feasibility

For cultivated nutrition, supplements, and nutraceuticals, achieving price parity is often critical to commercialization success.

COGS/TEA analysis helps to:

• Select scalable manufacturing technologies
• Determine commercialization feasibility
• Optimize unit economics
• Support investor and partnership discussions

A comprehensive COGS and TEA strategy is not simply a financial exercise — it is a commercialization roadmap.

By integrating:

• Manufacturing science
• Facility engineering
• Healthcare economics
• Automation strategy
• Commercial planning
• Reimbursement considerations
  

Esco Aster helps clients make informed, capital-efficient decisions that improve scalability, accelerate commercialization, and strengthen long-term enterprise value.

This service is also a critical component of:

• Investor pitch decks
• Business plans
• Fundraising strategies
• Licensing discussions
• Acquisition readiness
• National biotech infrastructure planning