ARTICLES BY LOUIS

• Velocity The Key Metric For External Manufacturing

  7/20/2026

  What separates high-performing sponsor-CDMO partnerships from struggling ones? Velocity. With 30+ years of experience, Ratna Shekhar is focused on how real speed drives results. Chief Editor Louis Garguilo investigates.

• Fundamentals Over Factors: How To Select Your CDMO

  7/16/2026

  Chief Editor Louis Garguilo is concerned about how drug sponsors evaluate external partners. "Beware the selection of CDMOs for factors over fundamentals," he writes in his latest editorial. This injunction warns against getting entangled in a spreadsheet of details when choosing a CDMO. It’s a difficult task. We continue to add factors we deem as crucial to the selection process, and thus have arrived at the point where we actually talk ourselves out of opting for the best CDMO for our needs.

• South Korea's Turn: CDMO Powerhouse Adds Biotech Innovation

  7/13/2026

  Where CDMOs first flourish, and clinical trials pick up, biotech innovation follows. It has been the China model, and now the addition of biotechs and biotech investment from within and without has South Korea as the new attention-grabbing nation participating throughout our industry. Here's an in-depth analysis from Chief Editor Louis Garguilo.

• A Vaccine To Prevent Breast Cancer Recalibrates The Possible

  7/8/2026

  A few times in life you hear something that precipitates a pause – a reality recalibration. Like experienced by Amit Kumar, chairman and CEO, Anixa Biosciences, when he came upon a technology he thought could enable a prophylactic vaccine to prevent breast cancer – perhaps eliminate the disease like we've done for polio. He personally invested over $2.5 million, and his development/commercialization strategy is all-outsourcing all the way.

• Insights Into How Sponsors Search Today For CDMOs

  6/29/2026

  An AI-driven CDMO search tool is returning insights into how today’s sponsors select external supply-chain partners. Aptly dubbed CDMO Signal, the application aggregates FDA inspection data, clinical trial records, SEC filings, and various other attributes across over 150 CDMOs. We've noticed at least three intriguing search threads originating from this newly created search tool.

• Remember Why You Are Outsourcing

  6/26/2026

  Just over a year ago, AstraZeneca went all in on creating a cell-therapy franchise; Samir Panjwani joined as a supplier-relationship manager. “I’ve been a builder throughout my career,” he says. The question he’s always kept in mind: Why are we in this industry? He discusses his new role, and his “bilateral experiences” supporting manufacturing outsourcing supply chains.

• Outsourcing Everything Is The Biotech Blueprint

  6/15/2026

  “My business model when I took over in 2017 was to outsource everything.” That’s as clear as it gets from a biotech CEO. Amit Kumar cuts to the chase during our conversation centered on the newly announced relationship between his company, Anixa Biosciences, and Cytovance Biologics, a U.S.-based CDMO.

• It's Years Later And We Still Disagree: Free WuXi From The BIOSECURE Act

  6/12/2026

  Through more than a dozen editorials starting in February of 2024, Chief Editor Louis Garguilo has disagreed a most reliable, trusted, and thus utilized global CDMO deserves to be brandished as off-limits to U.S. drug sponsors. Here we are again: WuXi AppTec is included in the Pentagon’s new list of companies said to have ties to the Chinese government and military. Here is Garguilo's update.

• Data Confirms Europe's CDMOs Succeed Despite U.S. Gyrations

  6/11/2026

  Confirming data is now at hand. In 2005, we suggested Europe’s CDMOs couldn’t wait for a political or trade détente vis-à-vis the U.S. If they actively leveraged their reputation for reliability, tariffs would not meaningfully redirect manufacturing to the U.S. Here's an analysis of a GlobalData report on what has transpired.

• AI And Data Pull CDMOs Into Pharma's Commercial Strategy

  6/8/2026

  The distance between external API producers and fill-finish experts, and the commercial apparatus of their pharma customers, has lessened. Commercial evidence now starts its derivation as innovation becomes tangible material, set processes, and then product creation … at external development and manufacturing partners. Jon Williams, CEO, Lumanity, says there's a shift toward integrating development strategy and commercial decision-making earlier in the lifecycle.