Kodak Flips The Script To Biopharma Manufacturing In Rochester
By Louis Garguilo, Chief Editor, Outsourced Pharma
Well, that didn’t work out as planned.
In 2018, I (rather excitedly, having some history there) wrote about the plan to revitalize Kodak’s Eastman Business Park (EBP) in Rochester, NY, as a biopharma center of activity by recruiting drug makers, biotechs, and CDMOs to its huge campus.
The story was all about Kodak’s infrastructure – 88 various sized reactors, a 117-megawatt power plant, as well as a specialty chemicals division that already performed contract manufacturing for pharmaceutical companies.
We were told Kodak would act as an incubator for our biopharma industry.
Kodak ditched the focus on becoming an industry landlord (although for anyone interested, space is still available.)
Since that 2018 editorial, Kodak has, so to speak, returned to itself – back to a domestic specialty materials and chemicals supplier, now intent on serving biopharma in that capacity.
“That 2018 plan was flawed,” Continenza says strongly.
At the time of that plan’s creation, Kodak was losing some $160 million annually, going through bankruptcies, and running out of cash. “They couldn’t execute that plan,” he says.
Kodak needed to survive as a business, not by signing up tenants. It should double down on what Kodak knew and was famous for – making coatings and specialty chemicals – “essentially small molecule,” says Continenza.
“That’s what film is. We’re phenomenal at it,” he adds. Kodak raised and then invested upwards of “hundreds of millions of dollars” back into the park.
The park that Continenza calls “my jewel.”
“We were actually contemplating getting rid of the park at one time!” he says incredulously, “but it’s our future.”
Replicating that infrastructure and scale, he says, “is virtually insane – it would cost you billions. We’ve a railroad, fire department, water, power supplies. A city inside a city.”
Rochester couldn’t be happier if Kodak returned to better days, when it employed over 60,000 people locally.
Going Regulated With Kodak Pharmaceuticals
What returned me to the subject of Kodak and Rochester was the company’s announcement of its entry into “pharmaceutical-grade materials,” and the build out of a cGMP lab and production facility to sell “regulatory-compliant products.”
At the start of the year, Kodak introduced four pharma-grade products made in Rochester: two formulations of phosphate-buffered saline and two formulations of Water for Injection.
These reagents are the first offerings from the GMP-compliant pharmaceuticals plant, and represent an early milestone in Continenza’s long-term plan. These are “immediately available for order by U.S. research laboratories, biopharma developers and contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs).”
In fact, for decades Kodak has manufactured unregulated key starting materials for U.S. and multinational CDMOs, and maintains over 1,400 “customer-ready” specialty-chemical processes
Incidentally, Kodak has also introduced new products for the film industry. “A very famous Hollywood director actually called me and convinced me to stay in film. And it was like day one on the job,” says Continenza.
“Why is anybody else making anything that has to do with layering and coating when we’re the world’s best?” Continenza asks. “So close your factory. Let me make it for you.”
All this has already stabilized Kodak’s finances.
The company has trimmed debt, raised cash and headed to profitability, reporting gross profit for 2025 of $232 million, an increase of $29 million or 14 percent over the prior year. Continenza says last year’s interest expense fell from $62 million to under $20 million as debt shrank and cash grew.
The Manufacturing Niche And The Name
Kodak’s Chief Marketing Officer, Denisse Goldbarg, says these new products “greatly expand our portfolio” while not abandoning the legacy lines. As she put it, Kodak is leveraging its existing competencies and brand (“Kodak Pharmaceuticals”) to address a market gap: domestic supply continuity for life-science chemicals.
Whether Outsourced Pharma readers are part of Big Pharma or biotechs, CDMOs or other industry-related organizations, we’ve all been shaken to a degree by supply-chain disruptions, quality challenges, and certainly geopolitical winds.
Kodak’s pitch is it offers familiar “Kodak quality” from a reliable U.S. manufacturer.
The company commissioned an independent survey to access the perception of the brand. Continenza says it found the Kodak name “in the top quartile of trusted brands in medical fields” – despite Kodak not having operated in the space until recently.
That is somewhat remarkable to those of us (old enough) to know of the years of decline, disappointment, and negativity Kodak faced – more than most organizations could endure and survive through.
Even today, says Continenza, Kodak is remembered fondly. “The Kodak brand gets a halo,” he says.
Halo or not, forward from here Continenza makes clear that Kodak is clear on its role in the pharma ecosystem: as a (broad-but-focused) specialty chemical supplier first and foremost.
“We’re not going to be a pharma company,” he says. “We will play within our niche. We’re going to fill the more complicated, higher-margin specialty products in small batch.”
“Kodak is laser-focused on being a B2B company,” says Goldbarg. And that means emphasizing domestic manufacture and service: customers get “lot-traceable products” created within Kodak’s proven quality systems.
Including Continenza and Goldbarg, six members of Kodak participated in my discussion with Continenza. Many had been working at Kodak for at least a decade; a few closer to two decades.
They all believe the time to shine is again upon them, and that current trends favor a U.S. manufacturer like Kodak.
Events such as supply-chain disruptions and government policies continue to drive a “build-in-America” impulse. In unison, they say these economic and market changes serve Kodak well to meet the demands for domestic supply.”
Continenza, though, clarifies that Kodak does not and will not rely on government protection or other outside contingencies.
“We have to be fully self-sufficient with or without tariffs,” he says.
Kodak is not building its business plan on government policy, but it does recognize a long-term opportunity arising currently. A renewed focus has made the historic park the home of a great manufacturing force.
Interestingly, there are still some 100 independent companies also operating in the Eastman Business Park, and Continenza says “there could be more.”
So it looks like 2018 wasn’t a complete wash. But this time, Kodak itself is the anchor tenant.