Editors' Desk

  1. Are CMOs Sufficiently Serving Biotechs? 11/29/2016

    Louis Demers of Xoma knows what he wants in contract development and manufacturing organizations. For example, they should be networked with other service providers, and in mission-critical alignment. Can he get what he wants? Can any outsourcing leader at a biotech today? CMO consolidation may make it more difficult.

  2. Pharma Copycats In CMO Acquisition Strategy 11/11/2016

    It used to be Pharma swept up emerging companies and their new technologies. Now CMOs do so as well. With Pharma, the technologies might end up on the shelf; not so with CMOs. But what about those emerging companies themselves? "If there are two guys thinking about doing a startup, they should do it,” we’re told.

  3. Pharma’s Potemkin Village On The River Of Outsourcing 11/9/2016

    Grigory Potemkin was governor of war-ravaged New Russia in 1787. He’s said to have deployed a shiny “mobile village” along the Dnieper River to impress Catherine II (and the world) as she inspected the region from her barge. Were we, too, in the year 2016, deploying polished porticoes to hide a dimmer reality, at our Outsourced Pharma conferences?

  4. Pfizer Sets Example For CMOs In M&A Strategy 10/24/2016

    “Big CMOs” acquire smaller contract development and manufacturing organizations in the same way as Big Pharma has historically acquired biotechs and smaller drug developers. This allegory resurfaced with Pfizer’s recent asset acquisition of Bind Therapeutics. What better modern-day model for CMOs to emulate? And we’ve just seen the cases of Catalent’s gobbling up Pharmatek, and Piramal lassoing Ash Stevens …

  5. Pfizer’s Key Questions For CMO Innovation 10/5/2016

    As it turns out, Bernie Huyghe of Pfizer has a flair for interrogative statements. This has served him well as a leader in the biopharmaceuticals and vaccines outsourcing group at the company. It also helped lead a room full of bio/pharma and CMO professionals through the subject of innovation in the external development and supply chain.

  6. Pharma’s Super Heroes Of Innovation 10/3/2016

    The supply chain is Pharma’s new super hero of innovation. But like any super hero, drug development and manufacturing providers struggle with a dual identity. One is conservative, steadfast, an order-taker. The other – the one Pharma wants today – breaks out into innovation and ingenious solutions. Can CMOs serve Metropolis in both capacities? We’ll find some answers in this sneak preview.

  7. Top (Secret) Quality Concerns For Selecting CMOs: How Important Are Records? 9/27/2016

    Five experts go undercover to prioritize a secret top-ten list of quality topics for Pharma and Bio sponsors selecting contract development and manufacturing organizations (CMOs). After weeks of discussion, they select a venue full of drug industry sponsors and service providers to unveil their work. They aren’t aware, though, that the audience will have its own stab at the list.

  8. The Price At My CMO Isn’t Right … But How Do I Know? 9/22/2016

    “What we’re doing up here is never done – focusing on that one input in public. Instead of focusing on money, you talk openly about ‘value.' Well, what is that? Or it’s all about ‘relationships.’ The industry talks partnership in public, but behind closed doors, aren’t prices and costs closing or breaking outsourcing business deals?”

  9. Riding With The Drug “Serializers” Of Pharma 9/19/2016

    A recent article with GSK mentioned the assistance Pharma is receiving from external serialization vendors and partners. Like in Wild West movies, the initial decision to bring in these benevolent gunslingers — I call them serializers — is difficult. Unlike the movies, though, there’s no moral equivalence: Few pharmaceutical companies — or packaging service providers — will achieve timely serialization compliance without this outside help.

  10. Waldorf Departure Drama For DCAT? 8/20/2016

    I didn’t quite buy into the DCAT announcement regarding its departure from the Waldorf Astoria, the long-time central location for DCAT Week in New York City each spring. Call me cynical—a degree in public relations can do that – but I just couldn’t believe “checking out” of the Waldorf would be as easy as it sounded. I took this cynicism directly to Margaret Timony, Executive Director of the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association.