The Value Of Strategic Outsourcing Relationships

By Kate Hammeke, Vice President Of Market Research, Industry Standard Research

The business relationship between CDMOs and drug developers has steadily progressed over the last 25 years. Originally, there was an initial emphasis on finding inefficiencies in the supply chain to enhance operations and cut costs. This has since evolved into straightforward client-vendor relationships, which have remained primarily transactional in nature. Where there was previously a lack of trust, now the industry is seeing interactions expanded to become preferred provider relationships, where a stronger connection between client and vendor provides more opportunity for cost savings.

With this change comes a shift from controlling fixed costs and capacity fluctuations to gaining access to specific technologies, skills, and/or scientific expertise not possessed in-house. These strategic partnerships between a drug developer and a CDMO allow the advantages of a long-term relationship to truly manifest. And as the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing industry matures, the benefits for drug developers of being able to outsource manufacturing have expanded far beyond cost savings.

Market research conducted by Industry Standard Research (ISR) shows that drug developers building outsourcing relationships should ask themselves several important questions before embarking on a partnership. Based on the answers to these questions, learn which characteristics experts say a drug developer should prioritize when evaluating contract manufacturers in this eBook.