Contract Manufacturing Organisations (CMOs) are under enormous pressure to create a unique value proposition for their clients.

With pharma companies operating simultaneously across several fronts – from investing in product development, through launching into new markets, to managing existing product lines – they increasingly rely on their outsourcing partners to bring innovation into the supply chain.

But how can CMOs differentiate themselves in the increasingly competitive battle for selection as an outsourcing partner?

One opportunity lies in unlocking the potential of technology – not only to mitigate risk, ensure patient safety and deliver client satisfaction, but also to position the CMO itself as a forward-thinking and innovative partner that will add real value.

In its 2016 Annual Report, Pfizer declared a five-year goal to achieve

“Complete visibility into the status of products at all times”, and to “immediately identify demand – from anywhere in the world – and quickly alert the best production facility to manufacture the product to meet that demand and ensure it is delivered on time”.

Research from Nice Insight suggests that the ability to introduce and implement innovative new technology is a major decision factor when selecting an outsourcing partner – as it is believed this will help them be first to market, with differentiating products.

In the 2015 research, 96% of those interviewed indicated that they would be keen to form outsourcing partnerships with providers who adopt state-of-the-art technologies to increase efficiency, quality and traceability.

Sure enough, the pharmaceutical giants are putting their money where their mouth is. According to an article from Harvard Business School, the industry is investing heavily in digitisation to improve “its historically unwieldy and heavily regulated supply chains” and achieve revenue growth. The article states

“As cloud and big data technologies advance, it has become increasingly feasible to achieve end-to-end tracking and sophisticated analysis of the supply chain, from initial testing to patient usage,”

And it’s a trend that, unsurprisingly, has become a key focus area for the companies themselves.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

CMOs, in this sense, face a similar issue to the pharma companies themselves.

With so many roles to play across the board, it can be extraordinarily difficult to find time or space to drive true innovation – particularly in an environment that is heavily regulated and focused so heavily upon risk management.

It can mean leveraging technological solutions to deliver a more defined and controlled process – and spending less time on the elements that add complexity, introduce scope for error, and lead to a multiplying number of change management issues as your partnership develops.

This approach to innovation will not be unfamiliar to most CMOs. From investment in manufacturing and print technologies to the digitisation of data, CMO’s have made the most of scientific advances to help them operate more effectively.

Artwork, for example, is a hugely complex area for CMOs, from on-boarding to management and maintenance – far more challenging than most other elements of the end-to-end process.

Time, resource and energy is frequently lost in the scramble to manage huge batches of compliance-driven documentation… and needless to say, the scope for innovation quickly gets lost amidst the reams of paperwork.

This pulls CMOs away from their core competency: to shape and deliver a value proposition for their clients.

The CMO that bucks this trend will win. Not only because they will be able to offer a leaner, more efficient and de-risked solution – but because they will prove to their potential partners that they are at the cutting edge of their field.

Perigord has been working alongside big pharma for more than a decade, helping them to manage their artwork process from end to end.

It is this experience and knowledge of big pharma that puts us in a position to offer CMOs a unique value proposition, a solution that helps to quickly bring on-board new clients with ease and manage complex artwork using best-in-class workflows.

GLAMS CMO is a purpose-built artwork workflow management platform built for the CMO industry. Simplifying the artwork process, removing complexity and strengthening compliance, it delivers a true competitive advantage, by managing their end-to-end artwork process more efficiently.

GLAMS is the world’s only dedicated workflow management system specifically designed for the Life Science Industry. It is the backbone of our product suite underpinning and delivering fully validated workflow and artwork management solutions for this highly regulated industry – and is trusted and approved by the world’s leading pharma companies.

Perigord Life Science Global Centres of Excellence:

Europe: Ireland & Germany

US: Connecticut & New York

Asia: India