Mohammed R Khan
Synergex Consulting, Canada
Title: Planning to outsource manufacturing: Have you done your homework?
Biography
Biography: Mohammed R Khan
Abstract
Globally rising healthcare costs, downsizing of healthcare expenditures, expiring patents and genericization, are all affecting the profitability of pharmaceuticals and forcing companies to find more cost-efficient ways of developing the drugs as well as producing the products. Outsourcing thus emerges as a logical alternative when appropriate. Contracting-out is not free of hurdles and challenges. Selecting the right contractor, confidentiality and intellectual property protection, ensuring an efficient two-way communication, Regulatory Compliance, keeping the client up-to-date on change controls, possible personality clashes between the client’s and contractor’s personnel, all manifest as bumps and hurdles. On the other hand, the overwhelming external marketing variables and the resultant loss of profitability are forcing the industry to critically look at the way it conducts its business and define profit-oriented operational strategies. Outsourcing thus emerges as a neat fit in the business design of the pharmaceutical industry of today and tomorrow, while partially or even totally freeing the business of the burden of capital investment and fixed cost issues, while also affording the advantage of reducing the time to market.