Contract Vendors, They Are A Changin'

No one can dispute that these are turbulent times all around. Not only are we in the midst of choosing a new president for the next four (at least) years, but our economy, most particularly, our banking system, is undergoing some seismic upheavals, and our stock market has officially transmogrified from bull to bear. The pharmaceutical industry has of course been in flux for several years now, but only recently do I think I see a real impact on contract service providers and manufacturers. Certainly that seems to be the theme we discern from this year's PharmSource–Pharmaceutical Technology Outsourcing Survey and from anecdotal evidence and discussions I've had with contract research and contract manufacturing organizations (CROs and CMOs).

In fact, if I had to sum it up, I'd say that the line between CRO and CMO is becoming more and more blurred. Let's start at the beginning. As I understand it, CMOs originally served to provide extra capacity to pharmaceutical companies that had exhausted their internal capacity. Later, as the biotech industry grew and entered clinical and then manufacturing phases, biotech companies turned to outside contractors for manufacturing and some development services. But large pharmaceutical companies pretty much restricted their outsourcing activities to manufacturing.