CPHI Online, the global community for the pharmaceutical industry, recently spoke with Symbiosis Chief Commercial Officer Joanne Anderson, to get her thoughts and insights into the evolution of pharmaceutical partnerships and industry priorities in an increasingly challenging global marketplace, the two main discussion topics of their upcoming 2026 bi-annual report ‘Outsourcing Outlook Update: Navigating Global Innovation.’
The report will be published in May however you can read Joanne’s interview in full below:
CPHI
With the rise of biologics, biosimilar, and advanced therapeutics development, are we seeing a shift towards specialised manufacturing partners or will we continue to witness the growth of the end-to-end CDMO as we have in previous years? Why?
Joanne Anderson
Both highly specialist & end-to-end manufacturing partners have their place and are typically suited to different modalities, stages of development and client strategies.
More recent trends have driven the emergence of highly specialised CDMOs and also those with selectively integrated end‑to‑end platforms. Those in the middle space and more generalist providers have found there isn’t much advantage that can be gained by being ‘in the middle’.
As biological modalities increase in complexity those advanced biologics and novel modalities strongly favour specialisation as opposed to traditional small molecules and first‑generation biologics. De-risking an asset’s CMC pathway requires modality-specific technical depth for successful handling of cell & gene therapies, mRNA, ADCs, viral vectors, and complex biologics. This requires highly experienced QA/QP along with regulatory teams supporting bespoke process development and modality-specific raw materials and analytics. Clients increasingly report that deep focus beats breadth when a new process means failure risks are omnipresent, scale-up pathways are non-linear and regulatory expectations are still evolving. Best‑in‑class clients often choose centres of excellence rather than one-stop shops—especially for clinical and early commercial supply.
For most clients, key factors remain speed, flexibility, and risk mitigation. This aligns well with smaller, specialised CDMOs that can move faster with tech transfers and process optimisation, offer greater manufacturing flexibility, manage smaller batch sizes and higher variability. For emerging biotechs (still the dominant innovation engine in biologics), time and responsiveness frequently matter more than integration. Highly specialised CDMOs are often embedded earlier and more deeply, functioning as extended R&D/manufacturing partners, not just suppliers.
CPHI
Where are current outsourcing models failing to meet industry and/or patient demands? How are outsourcing companies responding to these challenges?
Joanne Anderson
Clients are no longer asking “Who can do everything?”. They’re asking “Who is best for this asset, at this stage, with this risk profile?”. Clients increasingly design the modality with stage-specific supply chain. For example, in early development, aa highly specialised CDMO with deep process and analytical expertise is necessary. Once into scale-up, often a second CDMO is engaged early for parallel readiness. When ready for commercial manufacture, assets are often moved into an integrated CDMO (or internalised to launch) for redundancy, cost, and regulatory confidence. This can be seen as deliberate risk diversification, not fragmentation. While vendor count might increase actual dependency decreases.
Clients are now classifying pipelines more explicitly, then aligning their suppliers accordingly following strategic segmentation of assets by value and risk. Most clients now operate a two-tier vendor model with clearer differentiation between ‘strategic’ and ‘tactical’ suppliers. Their strategic partners work in long-term contracts with reserved or preferential capacity, often including joint investment in technology or facilities hence creating high barriers to exit. Tactical providers are used for overflow, specific unit operations, or niche needs within shorter contracts being largely price and speed driven.
Client supplier selection strategies are becoming more segmented, more intentional, more governance-heavy and less driven by convenience or legacy relationships. The most sophisticated clients now treat manufacturing partnerships as a strategic design problem, not a procurement exercise. The question is no longer “Which CDMO should we use?” but “How should we construct our external manufacturing network to match our portfolio risk?”
CPHI
What activities in the pharmaceutical pipeline benefit from truly strategic partnerships, and which require a purely transactional approach, whether for cost, efficiency, etc.?
Joanne Anderson
Experienced CDMOs recognise that big pharma buys systems, resilience, and accountability and emerging biotech buys belief, flexibility, and momentum. The strongest CDMOs can tailor their engagement model by sponsor type, they understand when they’re a bridge vs a long‑term destination and can help biotechs design future‑proof processes even when scale isn’t yet needed.
Big pharma design supplier strategy as a portfolio architecture problem whereas emerging biotech design their supplier strategy for survival. While both approaches are entirely rational, inherently both are evolving and increasingly collide as biotechs mature and Big Pharma outsources more aggressively.
Product lifecycle is a good rule of thumb when it comes to strategic vs. tactical positioning. Typically seen in the later stages of a products’ lifecycle, the activities that work best transactionally are when specifications are stable, outputs are easily measurable, and price, speed, or volume efficiency dominate. When an asset is as yet unproven, hence under development and/or clinical evaluation with the outcomes e uncertain and iterative, clients’ success may be tightly coupled to supplier performance, and when failure could materially de‑risk or destroy an asset then those activities truly benefit from strategic partnerships. In many cases clients evolve through initial strategic into a semi‑strategic then a transactional model as assets mature and risks become operational rather than scientific.
Typically fill–finish operations were seen historically as predominantly transactional since activities are highly standardised, well-regulated and predictable however it’s now accepted that execution risk (not science risk) justifies deeper partnerships especially for highly potent and/or personalised medicines such as cell and gene therapies.
CPHI
What kind of governance exists to nurture long-term partnerships, if at all? How can vendors and clients develop these processes?
JA
Governance in real long‑term partnerships differs from transactional supplier governance in that typically you will see:
– Joint success metrics—not one‑sided KPIs of only OTIF, cost variance & compliance deviations but strategically where both parties are measured on outcomes, not activity.
– Explicit risk‑sharing mechanisms to acknowledge that, not all failure is controllable and not all success is attributable. It’s important to avoid post‑hoc blame allocation, a behaviour which kills trust. If one side constructs a narrative that makes the outcome seem inevitable and someone clearly culpable on the ‘other side’ naturally dispute can arise.
– Transparency of capacity demands and prioritisation can be one of the biggest stress points in CDMO–sponsor relationships when hidden reprioritisation occurs. Strong governance ensures forward demand signals are shared, incentive structures are aligned with promised capacity and facilitates honest conversations about trade‑offs before they hurt delivery on either side.
– Good relationship continuity beyond individuals since this can mean durable partnerships survive any project setbacks, role changes and/or management turnover. By documenting decisions and rationale, rotating personnel deliberately, not accidentally and investing in institutional memory, strong governance can prevent dependency on individuals.
The most common client mistake is declaring a partnership strategic then managing it through procurement playbooks. It can be that clients underestimate their role in partnership success though this can be built by assigning relationship owners, not just vendor managers and aligning procurement, technical, and commercial incentives and properly supporting governance process (time, people, systems) to allow their CDMOs to truly operate as part of the extended operating model, not an add‑on. CDMOs are not passive participants and can materially shape the quality of governance. To be effective CDMOs should be proactively proposing governance structures, coaching clients unfamiliar with partnership models, bringing uncomfortable truths early and separating ’account management’ from ‘relationship guardianship’. The best CDMOs trigger executive dialogues themselves, help clients think portfolio‑wide and invest before revenue is guaranteed.
It’s important to remember that long‑term partnerships do not happen because of goodwill or contract length rather they happen because governance actively manages alignment under pressure. The best partnerships invest in fewer relationships, deeper governance, earlier escalation and more honest conversations. We should accept the truth which remains that fundamentally while governance doesn’t prevent problems, it determines whether they destroy the relationship.
