News | October 14, 2015

Aesica Introduces New Service Model With One CDMO Managing A Customer's Entire Supply Chain

The company’s groundbreaking solution radically simplifies supply chain management – optimising efficiency, improving performance and bringing products to market faster

Aesica, the global pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), has unveiled a highly innovative new approach and business model that solves multiple supply chain challenges at once. The company takes on the management of other CDMOs, whilst serving as the single, central point of customer contact.

This groundbreaking model enables Aesica to reduce the number of CDMOs which previously the customer had to manage. Moreover, the company can identify which are the most strategically useful and effective CDMOs to engage in projects, significantly enhancing value for money to its contractors.

The industry solution, which streamlines processes and creates a much simplified supply chain structure, achieves pharma’s goal of reducing the overall number of supplier relationships, whilst at the same time maintaining a consistent outsourcing approach across an entire portfolio. It also serves to guarantee On Time In Full (OTIF) product delivery, optimise efficiency, eliminate waste and supply shortages, and to achieve significant cost savings. Moreover, full visibility is achieved across the entire end-to-end manufacturing process.

This new solution significantly speeds up time to market. For example, Aesica hosted a 3 way 6 SIGMA workshop, for a project with a customer and another engaged CDMO, the outcomes of which was overall supply lead-time reduced from 180 days to just 45.

Aesica already manages a portfolio of more than 10 different CDMOs and has assigned its own dedicated team responsible for ensuring total process management across an entire supply chain. This includes procurement to manage the relationship, risk assessment and price negotiations between customers, Aesica and the other CDMOs. Moreover, the team is charged with responsibility for quality to manage QC and QA activities and the supply chain to manage the delivery of components, including API for bulk production at the CDMO and then onward delivery to various sites for final processing – for which an Aesica external manufacturing director is appointed to lead.

The model is primarily geared to small and medium sized CDMOs, facing the same price pressures as big pharma, whilst lacking all the skill sets and resources required for managing multiple CDMOs. It is also suited to companies that have diverse portfolios with affiliates or licensees based across multiple geographic regions.

The process of selecting and reducing the number of CDMOs needed to implement projects requires minimal costs or risk to the customer with very limited tech transfer and regulatory hurdles to contend with.

Garry Hodges, Operations Director at Aesica Pharmaceuticals commented: “We are very pleased to have brought our new business model to the market to help meet the pressing demand from the pharma market for solutions that improve, streamline and significantly simplify their supply chains. Our business model helps our customers to lower their costs, reduce risk and to be faster to market.”

He continued: “Indeed, effective supply chain management is critical to ensuring that products are supplied to the market at the volumes and cost demanded.”

About Aesica:

  • Aesica is a leading provider of finished dose and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) development and manufacturing services to pharmaceutical partners.
  • Consort Medical plc is a leading, global, single source drug and delivery device CDMO through its two operating subsidiaries Bespak and Aesica. Consort Medical is at the leading edge of innovation and is committed to investing in patient, clinician and customer driven innovation to create new treatments, new markets and new opportunities.
  • The Consort medical Group has facilities in King’s Lynn, Cambridge, Nelson, Milton Keynes, Cramlington, Nottingham, Queenborough and Hemel Hempstead in the UK; in Monheim and Zwickau, Germany; in Pianezza, Italy.

Source: Aesica