Pharmaceutical Technology-08-01-2005

By forming strategic collaborative partnerships with contract research organizations, pharmaceutical companies can take advantage of several strategies for accelerating drug development, maximizing profitability, and extending patent exclusivity.

New maintenance models focused on efficiency improvements can deliver cost savings and enhanced service quality.

2005 has been a good year for the contract services industry, and 2006 promises to be nearly as successful, according to the 2005 PharmSource–Pharmaceutical Technology outsourcing survey. But as pharmaceutical outsourcing activity grows, companies are looking for more sophisticated ways to manage and control their contract services expenditures.

Pharmaceutical companies can evaluate the opportunities of global outsourcing by considering the strategic approaches of other industries and of the pharmaceutical companies already outsourcing outside the United States and Europe.

Various systems and measures can be used to safely handle and process explosive pharmaceutical compounds in a range of manufacturing procedures.

To progress compounds from candidacy to IND rapidly, manufacturers can adopt a strategy that involves front-loading as many studies as possible to reduce the number of potential problems, finding the best solid form for manufacture through a polymorph study or screen, developing a manufacturing process and formulation that preserves this form, and adopting process analytical technology and quality-by-design principles.

More and more often, manufacturers in need of outside services are turning to preferred providers.