M2M SPECIAL: What Pharma Really Wants From Its CDMOs

Felipe Furiati (0:00)

The machines are there, of course, you can be impressed with the new equipment, with the new line, automation and so on, of course. But who is actually to execute that?

Nick Walk (0:09)

If you go into a meeting and you need to ask for permission later, then that doesn't work.

Daniel Hurni (0:12)

Good relationships don't develop just by having a contract together.

Raman Sehgal (0:27)

Hey, guys and girls, welcome back to Molecule to Market, where we go inside the outsourcing space of pharma and biopharma services, covering every stage of the global drug development and commercialization life cycle. I am your host, Raman Sehgal, and in today's episode, I thought I'd do something a bit more interesting and fun and break it up from the usual interviews.

So we pulled together a bit of a special episode for you guys, where we're looking at what pharma really wants from its CDMOs today and really going inside the buyer's mind.

The timing of this is very intentional. Many of you will be heading to CPHI in Milan in a couple of weeks. I will also be there. So if you want to hang out and say hello, drop me a message and I'll certainly try to do that.

But with that in mind, we thought it would be a good opportunity to bring together some of the fantastic perspectives that we've had over the last year or so from buyers specifically.

I've done nearly 300 episodes of Molecule to Market over the last six years or so. The perspective that buyers bring, whether it be external outsourcing in Big Pharma, biotech buyers or indeed specialty pharma type companies, it's brilliant to get those perspectives to help us on the vendor side to just quite frankly do a better job, like understand empathetically what the buyer is going through to try and do things better and serve as clients better. So what we thought could be a value for you guys going into CPHI is pulling some of those kind of key perspectives together and that's exactly what we are going to do today. And so today's episode kind of features a few fantastic guests that we've had on the podcast. Before you'll hear from Daniel Hurni, who spent more than a decade at BMS and is now at Roche, Felipe Furiati, who is leading external supply at Grunenthal Pharma Supply and also a Pharma Supply chain veteran, Frank Binder. And also in addition to that, we've pulled together three of the guests that I had at CDMO Live, which was very much focused on when things go wrong in relationships. So this episode is going to cover a few aspects. We're going to look at understanding why and how buyers actually choose their CDMOs, what they really mean when they talk about strategic partnerships, and also some of the warning signs when relationships start to go wrong. And then perhaps more importantly than that, what CDMOs could do to become better partners. So whether you're on the CDMO side of the fence or any supplier side of the fence, or indeed on the buyer side, there's so much you'll take from today's episode. So please enjoy today's show. One thing to quickly add is I will also be attending CDMO Live Americas, which is on October 21st in my beloved Boston, one of my favorite cities in the world. Super exciting for the CDMO Live team. This is their first ever event in North America. It's happening at the Sheridan Copey Place, which I believe is in Back Bay in Boston. So bringing together that same formula that has worked really, really well for the guys across in Europe for the event in Rotterdam is also going to be transplanted to the event in Boston. Super exciting and I'm very proud to be once again hosting a panel, which will be on the 20th of October. I'm not sure which panel I'm going to be doing, but I suspect it will be something related to outsourcing and external outsourcing. As per usual, with these guys, there are some amazing outsourcing experts and speakers and influencers that will be at the event. So yeah, looking forward, I think it's going to be 400 or 500 people there. So a nice size in terms of getting to speak to lots of people there and meeting some new people. And they've got their partner match thing as well, which is fantastic. And it is a way for the vendors to meet potential buyers and drug sponsors in external manufacturing in CMC, which is super exciting. So if you can make the event, go to the CDMO Live website, and I'm sure you can navigate your way to register there. And I'll see you guys at the show in Boston. This episode is brought to you by Bora Pharmaceuticals. I've got a real soft spot for Bora. I first met Bobby Sheng, the CEO, back in 2017, and it's been amazing to watch the business grow and expand to become truly top tier global CDMO. Bobby was in fact one of our first ever guests on Molecule to Market, a great, great guy. Bora now supports many of the biggest pharma companies across the globe. Bora has become known as the CDMO that brings a genuine partnership to clients, as shown through their shared risk promise, their white glove service, and their peerless on time in full delivery record. If you want to feel more confident about your CDMO, then I suggest you head to boracdmo.com.