Quality And Innovation Bringing Drug Discovery Back To The United States

By Rory Curtis, vice president of Biology and Pharmacology and site head; Mark Wolf, section head, Medicinal Chemistry; and Wayne Anderson, senior research scientist II, Biology, at Albany Molecular Research Inc.‘s Buffalo, N.Y. facility

Outsourcing is no longer just about cost reduction. The desire for efficiency that prompted pharmaceutical and biotechnology sponsors to externalize research decades ago is now focused on services firms, which are responding by developing smarter ways of working.

More efficient drug discovery is existential. Pharmaceutical companies struggling to develop new products in a cost effective manner are attracted to contract research organiza­tions (CROs) that can find the best drug candidates more quickly and efficiently.

As a result, U.S. CROs with broad expertise, access to talented bi­ology and chemistry workforce, and the ability to streamline the discovery process are winning back business lost to volume-focused overseas rivals.

In addition, demand for high-quality data and the growing recognition of the benefits of working with full-service provid­ers based in the same region is seeing more pharmaceutical companies outsource drug discovery work to U.S. CROs.