ARTICLES BY LOUIS

• Sub-Second Blockchain Verification: Next Up, CDMO Interoperability?

  4/15/2019

  I asked Susanne Somerville, leader of the MediLedger Project, and now CEO of Chronicled, for an update on blockchain technology and supply-chain adaption in the biopharma industry. She came back with excited talk of “sub-second drug verification,” and a new "interoperability creating effective channels of communication," including with your CDMOs. Glad I asked.  

• Internal Processes And Attitude Drive Outsourcing Outcomes

  4/8/2019

  Take it from an organic chemist, who transitioned from the bench to cross-functional leadership and CMO management at companies such as Amgen, Baxter/Baxalta, Shire, and now ImmunoGen: Outsourcing effectively starts with realizing "the value of establishing consistent internal processes for all activities.” And, he adds, bring a bit of attitude to your service providers. 

• Solutions Needed For Automated And Analytical Services In Fill Finish

  4/1/2019

  For fill finish services at CDMOs, two items high on biopharma executives’ wish list are increased analytical and testing capabilities, and automation to replace manual product-line inspection. However, it appears to the CDMOs that customers are saying, ‘The onus is on you to figure it out … and pay it forward.” Is there a mutually acceptable solution?

• JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon And Outsourced Pharma Readers

  4/1/2019

  Each year, Jamie Dimon’s annual letter to shareholders is considered required reading by folks on Wall Street and elsewhere. Dimon is Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the largest of the big four American banks. Reading through his letter this year, I found three areas we might consider directly relevant to Outsourced Pharma readers. 

• CDMOs Respond: Paying For A New Fill Finish Paradigm

  3/26/2019

  As vivaciously as our board members responded to a question regarding their biggest challenges when contracting fill finish services, CDMOs have now reacted in kind. The reactions come from around the world, including four CEOs of CDMOs. One thing both sides agree: They are operating within an encompassing paradigm shift.

• Challenges With Fill Finish Services Not Finished

  3/26/2019

  Ours is a responsive Editorial Advisory Board, but no question posed to them elicited the range and rate of response as this one:

• Here's An Idea: Let's Build A High-Potency Generics Facility

  3/20/2019

  In 2005, a couple of guys in Waterford, Ireland, got together and said: “There’s not enough high-potency, high-containment facilities in the world. Why not build one?” While they were at it, they also decided to focus a new facility on developing and producing innovative generics. What could be so easy?

• Non-Solutions For Drug Prices: CDMOs Complicit Or Exemplar?

  3/13/2019

  When are “solutions” not solutions? When they don’t solve the problems for which they are intended. In part two of our pre-publication review of “Drugs, Money, And Secret Handshakes,” we start with the incongruous idea that raising prices will help lower prices. And we analyze the role of outsourcing.

• Include CDMOs In “Drugs, Money And Secret Handshakes”

  3/8/2019

  “Drugs, Money, and Secret Handshakes” is one hundred power-packed pages from author Robin Feldman, the Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings. Feldman provided Outsourced Pharma  a pre-publication copy of the book. Here’s part one of my review.

• “Tobacco Road” Brings Biopharma-CDMOs Together

  3/6/2019

  Effective government/private-enterprise partnerships; biopharma and CDMOs working collaboratively and internationally on innovative plant-made pharmaceuticals; the advancement of biopharma-CDMO business models. And we can partly thank tobacco plants. Who would have thought?