Why Is Communication In Biopharma Failing?

Outsourcing is the new normal in biopharma

Bringing a new biopharmaceutical drug from early-stage discovery to the market is a huge undertaking that requires different skills at each stage. With strict and dynamic regulatory standards, it has become increasingly challenging for a biopharma company to keep up and have all the required skills or equipment.¹ When lacking in certain areas of expertise, companies can waste time and money only to have subpar results. Hence, to reduce costs, biopharma companies can outsource at least parts of the drug development process to contract organizations with the desired knowledge
and facilities.

When a biopharma company delegates every stage of product development to a contract organization, it can act as a “virtual company” that does not need any technical staff and instead coordinates all development processes while holding the intellectual property rights.² As the coordinating center, a biopharma company can freely choose and assemble a network of partners based on criteria such as technical knowledge, speed, resources, and costs. While outsourcing important tasks brings many benefits - most notably a faster proof of concept at lower costs - it also comes with many communication-related challenges that can delay time to market. This white paper outlines three said challenges:

1. Large volume and variety of documents
2. Regulation-compliant storage of data
3. Real-time visibility and control