Not So Fast Into The Night: Your Outsourcing Needs A Pause

By Louis Garguilo, Chief Editor, Outsourced Pharma

Barelling through the second month of the year? Here’s a suggestion to pump the breaks for a bit. Take one more glance in the rearview mirror to assess your current progress, reconfirm your pathway is your intended one.

An outsourcing pause might pay off handsomely this year, and that’s because a lot of important stuff happened last year on the supply-chain front. You made plans and formed expectations based on those trends and experiences.

Are you currently abiding by those analyses?

I for one couldn’t fit the full zeitgeist of the past year into one yearend editorial – it took a series. My outsourcing pause was to sum up (a re-summing, if you will) those in a final, abbreviated look to help readers ensure we are on the intended track.

I’ve packaged them into two categories:  

• Tariffs Not Terrible / Supply Chains Bend But Don’t Break 
• CDMO Customer-Service / Transitioning Talent

For all its uncertainty, the months prior delivered some consistent signals about where drug development and manufacturing outsourcing is headed.

Those signals showed up in how global supply chains behaved — sometimes stubbornly refusing to follow the prevailing narrative; how CDMOs viewed and staffed themselves; and how sponsors evaluated partners.

And there was a unifying theme that you should now be taking advantage of:  the sponsor-provider dynamic has changed.

A Resilient Supply Chain

First, the GLP-1 boom served as a new stress test for CDMOs and pharma’s internal development and manufacturing as well.

We proved up to the challenge.

CDMOs demonstrated a quick-twitch flexibility in reassigning/creating capacity, enlisting talent (see below), and stayed resilient. That required strong leadership, responding to market demand and empowering sponsors to produce as much drug substance/product as possible, as expeditiously as possible.

No matter whether you have anything to do with this super-class of drug, are you taking advantage of what appears a more flexible external-supply industry in 2026? Have you stepped up to the plate and asked for it of your CDMOs?

If you don’t see this new attitude at your CDMO, will you continue to be satisfied there?

Second, nothing generated more anxiety the past months than tariffs. Predictions were dire. Supply chains would fracture. Costs would spike. Europe’s API ecosystem, some warned, would be especially vulnerable.

It simply did not happen.

European API supply chains largely held steady. Relationships endured. Adaptations were made.

That doesn’t mean tariffs were irrelevant, or are now. It does mean (again) supply chains proved more resilient – more pragmatic – than the rhetoric suggested.

It also underscores a point we are relearning: geographic diversification simultaneously suggests optionality and risks. Do not overestimate one over the other.

Fortunately, even within a year filled with geopolitical uncertainty, operational continuity quietly won. We are a mature industry all told. Ensure your thinking is proceeding even-handly, despite what the next months may throw at you.

Talent And A Customer-First Focus

The intensity with which CDMOs recruited sponsor-side talent was an opportunistic activity, but it also was seen as a practical element in a stategy to elevate customer service.

So evaluate your CDMOs overall treatment of you and your programs. At the least, good-enough customer service should be reassessed; there are CDMOs out there striving for much better.

They've sought to hire professionals with sponsor-organization experience – those familiar with internal decision-making, investor pressures, governance expectations, and outsourcing frustrations.

The most competitive CDMOs want to be engines of execution. They look to anticipate sponsor needs, speak the same language, reduce friction.

A few months ago we spoke about a new paradigm where customer service is as important as capacity and capability.

For years, you may have tolerated spotty communication, and at times opaque timelines, mostly because demand seemed to outstrip supply.

Your tolerance for this should have eroded. By the end of last year, accountable and informed customer service was often discussed at CDMOs in the same breath as technical fit and available slots.

Did you intend to take a harder line on the service you receive? If you are you about to select a CDMO, keeping this in mind may increase your outsourcing outcomes.

One final question here, and then carry on into the year.

Have you worked to better ensure the employees you want to keep internal don’t jump ship to a CDMO? Your employees are also assessing how their year is going.

Macro and micro supply chain evaluations. CDMO self-realizations and talent migration. Challenges, but also opportunities for competitive advantages.

Outsourcing today is much about an unemotional evaluation and application of trends. This requires a constant, level (re)assessment of whether you are on the right path to getting all you deserve as a paying customer of external service providers.

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For further review:

2025 Tariffs Barely Impact Europe's API Supply Chains
2025 GLP-1 Impacts Tell Us About CDMOs In 2026
2025 Review: Customer Service As Important As Capacity And Capability
Trading Places: 2025 Intensified CDMOs Recruiting Sponsor Talent
Is 2026 The Year We End The "Culture Wars" Between Sponsors And CDMOs?