Editors' Desk

61. BioMarin Transforms Supplier M&A Into Joint Ventures 4/25/2016

    To navigate supplier and CMO consolidation, Isaac Young, senior director, supply chain operations, BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., offers some advice: Approach your outsourcing relationships like joint ventures. “As you have this greater engagement between two companies,” says Young, “you’re likely to enter an interdependent relationship. Why not acknowledge that rather than try to power-play or position one another?”

62. Amgen Looks To Air And Auto For Advice 4/11/2016

    There are roughly 38,000 components that go into building a commercial airplane; in the automotive industry, it’s about 13,000  to build a car. “That requires just a little bit of coordination,” says Rodney MacLea of Amgen. If companies in those industries effectively manage much larger supply chains, why can’t pharma improve its performance? MacLea and Amgen set out to find out.

63. 4 Questions From The PDA Annual Meeting 4/8/2016

    A few weeks back I attended the 2016 PDA Annual Meeting held in San Antonio. In general, the main thrust of the conference focused on the technologies and approaches being applied by biopharma manufacturers as they move their therapies from development through commercialization.

64. Genentech Speaks The Language Of CMOs 3/28/2016

    Todd Mabe, head of External Quality, Biologics Drug Substance for Genentech, knows his company has an inherent advantage when contracting for biologics production capacity. “It’s fair to say we’re a popular customer target,” he explains. But that doesn’t make the selection process a walk in the park. 

65. Biogen's Outsourcing Trifold For Joint Value Creation 3/22/2016

    Purposeful segmentation, descriptive scorecards and matrixes, and CMO governance, form a trifold of strategic relationship management for Biogen’s supply chain, says Thomas Holmes, senior director for Global External Manufacturing.  

66. In Outsourcing, Genzyme Sees An Advantage 3/16/2016

    Regarding the outsourcing of biologics manufacturing, Piet Houwen of Sanofi says, “Starting from today, where I’d say the market relationship is sixty percent driven by the sellers, I believe we’ll see a change to a move in the direction of the sponsors.”

67. Is The Virtual Biotech Model In Jeopardy? 3/10/2016

    It appeared we were coasting uninterrupted to a global outsourcing industry fully able to support a wide variety of virtual business models and strategies. But conversations with executives at established biotechs reveal an unfolding reality.

68. At Biogen, Three Keys To Outsourcing 3/2/2016

    Thomas Holmes, senior director for Global External Manufacturing, Biogen, says: (a) cost is not the strategic driver in CMO selection; (b) “dual sourcing” is revenue independent; and (c) the time from drug approval to market launch is all of 48 to 72 hours. 

69. Insiders' Guide To Winning In The Drug Delivery Device Market — Part 4: Vertical Integration 2/23/2016

    The tenets of vertical integration can drive a complete combination product development strategy, as well as establish the internal core competencies needed to consistently execute that strategy. I recently sat down with Anand Subramony, VP of drug delivery and device development at Medimmune (the global biologics arm of AstraZeneca). We discussed his thoughts on trends in the drug delivery device market and how the business philosophies of vertical integration can play a role.

70. Biopharma Climbs The Serialization Mountain 2/11/2016

    The data associated with drug-product serialization will be Everest-like; accessing it may pose every bit the security risk. The difference is millions of people may be trying to access the summit … every day. What’s clear today is that a national program for drug serialization looms large on the horizon, and rises, if you will, high into the data clouds.