Pharmaceutical development outsourcing

The extent to which the current trend toward mergers and acquisitions continues in life sciences, and also the extent to which larger pharmaceutical companies outsource research and development to smaller companies. It may become necessary for rapid integration of systems between companies that had previously had no relationship at all, and for the secure integration of particular systems between collaborating companies. 

Undoubtedly, a big barrier to the introduction of SC technologies in pharmaceutical plants is the high capital and operating costs of such equipment, especially if they are used for the production of a limited number of materials in a complex portfolio. As pharmaceutical companies outsource more and concentrate on in house manufacture for the later stages of the synthetic route, the lack of SC reactor facilities at contractors and fine chemical suppliers limits the development of reactions in SC fluids. 

Contain cost—since only one in three drugs recovers its cost of development, the pharmaceutical industry needs to find ways to increase the supply of drug candidates while at the same time reduce development costs. Outsourcing to top-tier CROs can accomplish both of these objectives. 

Although the scope of application continues to grow, the routine use of LC/MS technologies are now embraced by pharmaceutical researchers. Standard methods that incorporate highly specialized features are routinely developed for a variety of novel applications. Furthermore, many LC/MS applications that deal with quantitative bioanalysis (i.e., pharmacokinetics studies) are frequently outsourced to contract analytical laboratories. Thus, the routine use of LC/MS is a benchmarked commodity for drug development. 

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