Contracting Out Frees Sponsors Up

Contract organizations offer sponsors specialized equipment, capacity, and expertise for testing, manufacturing, and packaging bio/pharmaceutical products.

Contract organizations offer sponsor companies flexibility by providing capacity, expertise, knowledge, and cost savings. Contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs), contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), and other contract organizations can also offer smaller bio/pharma companies greater opportunities, by providing the resources smaller biopharma companies may not have.

According to Robert O’Brien, director operations—Packaging & Logistics at Almac Pharma Services, sponsor companies should consider if contracting activities to a CMO is more cost effective than performing those activities in-house. O’Brien points to direct access to specialists and equipment, a level of control of quality standards, and requirements for scale up as factors to consider when deciding whether to outsource or not. “Outsourcing enables the sponsor company to concentrate on their core competencies, product innovation, and strategic initiatives,” O’Brien says.

When making the decision to outsource a particular process to a contract partner, there are several things sponsor companies should consider.