In response to our industry's large carbon
footprint1, an increasing number of organizations have made maximizing
sustainability a top priority for their operations. Encouraged by efforts such
as the EU's "Green Deal," many businesses are actively embracing an
environmental conscience and exploring innovative methods to reconcile economic
performance, social responsibility, and environmental effect.
By Richard Parkersic
As the volume and ambition of these
commitments expand, supply chain partners will see this trend mirrored in RFPs.
Biopharmaceutical businesses are increasingly looking for collaborations that
help them achieve both their commercial and sustainability goals, whether it's
through eco-friendly package design, carbon-neutral production facilities, or
less resource-intensive operations.
This tendency will be especially important for
manufacturers. CDMOs will not only need to figure out how to
successfully map new client needs.
Digitization
Biopharma, which has long been a technology
behind, has now begun a delayed, pandemic-fueled digitalization sprint.
Countless organizations have rushed in the last two years to virtualize their
workforce, move their teamwork to the cloud, and use technology to keep their
operations operating while keeping their people safe.
Service providers are no exception, and they
show no indications of slowing down their fast digitization. AI and machine
learning-powered industrial solutions are gaining traction, with automation and
robots driving considerable improvements in supply chain productivity. Expect
further investment in devices like these while pandemic concern persists.
Strategic Partnerships
Another long-standing impediment is the
ever-increasing expense of bringing new medications to market. Biopharma
businesses will continue to strive to reduce the "total cost of
ownership" involved with developing, producing, and commercializing their
medications this year. This will result in a greater emphasis on not just the
function but also the value of outsourced collaborations.
As astute service providers have realized,
biopharma businesses seek third-party specialists who do more than fill a skill
gap or allow an in-house team to focus on key skills. Customers are
increasingly searching for suppliers that can provide a strategic, value-added
combination of specialized services, customized solutions, and efficient
operations throughout as much of the value chain as feasible.
In response, CDMOs aggressively seek new
collaborations, particularly between producers with complementary expertise or
complementary skill sets. Several high-profile CDMO partnerships have lately
formed, with the purpose of synchronizing knowledge in ways that reduce
time-to-market, expedite technical advancements, and provide considerable
long-term value to consumers.
Integrated Services
One significant trend we notice is that pharma
innovators are increasingly collaborating on an integrated basis with their
CDMO. Initially, CDMOs were largely focused on early-stage development,
assisting customers in obtaining an investigational new drug (IND) application.
Integrated CDMOs, such as Piramal Pharma Solutions (PPS), now help firms across
the whole development process, including late stage and commercial programmes.
This trend is being driven by a number of
causes. Integration offers intrinsic advantages in terms of market speed and
cost efficiency. It is easier to transfer technology within a single
organization. Similarly, many project parts can be managed by a single, key
point of contact for project management. Supply chain integration, with
synchronized material, provides further benefits.
The Supply Chain and the Pandemic
Everyone has seen how the epidemic has
disrupted global supply chains over the last two years. The pharmaceutical
supply chain is especially complicated—possibly the most complex
of any sector. Specialization is a big element; our supply chain is extensive,
worldwide, and includes high-demand minerals. There is a global movement
towards rethinking the global supply chain, which includes reshoring,
increasing supplier redundancy, rethinking logistics, and upgrading systems and
procedures to guarantee that supplies are easily accessible.
PPS tackled the issue head-on through its
supply chain risk mitigation team. They tried to categorize and prioritize the
raw materials we use, categorizing them according to whether they were utilized
in novel or commercial goods and rating them according to particular risk factors.
The risk criteria included information such as a product's commercial
potential, manufacturing location, whether it was sourced from a single source,
present availability, dependency on China, and procurement value. The team
suggested unique risk mitigation techniques based on the scope and type of the
dangers associated with a raw material in order to achieve rapid, efficient,
effective, and long-term outcomes.
Supplying Advanced Therapeutics
Demand
Because of the rapid rise of new modalities
like cell and gene therapy, many corporations are foregoing costly efforts to
establish internal production capabilities. Instead, they are looking for
partners that can supply the advanced manufacturing practices, technical
expertise, and technology required across all modalities to get medicines
closer to commercialization.
In these sectors, innovation and knowledge
have grown rapidly, and there is an urgent demand for development and
production partners that can solve obstacles quickly. These issues include scaling
up robust processes, optimizing analytical techniques, increasing yields, and
integrating upstream and downstream processing with raw material supply chains
to boost efficiency.
CDMOs are also an important element of the
manufacturing supply chain for new medicines, therefore they must guarantee
that sufficient capacity is available to innovators to fulfill demand. As a
result, researchers are being forced to seek out collaborative partners early
in the development process to guarantee capacity is accessible when needed.
Model of Virtual Pharma Business
Smaller biotechs, defined as firms with
revenues of less than $250 million or listed companies with a market valuation
of less than $2.5 billion, are driving much of the innovation in biopharma
pipelines. There are over 5,500 of these businesses, and we anticipate that by
2026, they will contribute more than 60% of biopharma growth while having
little or no in-house scale-up capabilities. These companies are looking to
partner with CDMOs through a "virtual pharmaceutical" business model
that allows them to simplify and accelerate development, hit milestones, and
retain ownership without investing significant capital in infrastructure.
These smaller businesses frequently have
insufficient in-house resources to maintain CDMO relationships.
Pharmaceutical Microbiology Resources (http://www.pharmamicroresources.com/)
In this
sense, practical methods and indicators must be used to guarantee the
operability of autoclave equipment and the sterility of treated waste to
mitigate the risk of biological exposure and hospital biosafety. We
designed a cross-sectional study to evaluate the performance the
autoclaving process with Bowie & Dick test and biological indicator
at the Hemotherapy and Blood Bank Unit of the Cayetano Heredia Hospital
in Peru. 
