Discovery Research From The Editor

  1. The Key To Outsourcing Is Timing-lines, Not Timelines 10/16/2025

    The Rolling Stones sang, “Time is on my side.” Nary a biotech would agree. Brent Powell, a process chemist who started his career at a CDMO, knows a few reasons for this, and how to make the strategic change in your thinking from timelines to timing-lines.

  2. Ivory Tower To CDMO: Can Universities Successfully Outsource Development? 10/6/2025

    Let’s be honest: for professionals at CDMOs, dealing with university-based clients can feel like trying to run a development campaign through a distortion field. Even when inventors are “spun out” into the “real world” as a biotech, breaking through to the realities of progressing molecules is tricky. Apologies to those who might take offense, but stick with us, this will prove helpful for academia and others to optimize working with CDMOs.

  3. Execute Or Decay: Radiopharma's Outsourcing Reality 10/1/2025

    The radiopharmaceuticals industry is benefiting from increasing investments and a rush of promising innovation. At the same time, it faces a rather spotty outsourcing services and supply infrastructure. The Radiopharmaceutical Blueprint Report calls this the industry’s central paradox, “a multi-billion-dollar wave of investment and commercial validation is colliding with a fragile, underdeveloped infrastructure” of isotope supply, GMP manufacturing, and talent.

  4. The Death Of A Dogma: David Baltimore And Lessons For Modern Drug Discovery 9/11/2025

    Nobel laureate, David Baltimore passed away at 87 years old, on September 6, 2025. He was widely regarded as a scientific visionary who at just 37, co-discovered reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that flipped molecular biology on its head by showing that genetic information could flow from RNA back to DNA, not just the other way around. 

  5. Tech Transfer 2025 – A High-Stakes Game Of Trust 8/4/2025

    Trust us. You'll want to read this editorial from Chief Editor Louis Garguilo, who was (gently) reminded he hadn't visited the subject of tech transfer in a while. He answers the questions both sponsors and CDMOs ask to gain the trust to make a tech transfer work for both sides.

  6. The FDA Was Darned Near Perfect, Right? 7/11/2025

    Let's return to minutes before Donald Trump became president in January, to a time when the FDA was near perfect. That’s what one would assume today listening to those up in arms over the agency. Of course, the reality was quite different. Chief Editor Louis Garguilo helps regain perspective.

  7. Why CDMOs Are Leaving Small Molecules Behind 7/7/2025

    It’s rare when a CDMO’s restructuring leads to thoughts about national health policy. But as Chief Editor Louis Garguilo wrote his recent editorial on Lonza’s decision to focus heavily on biologics, it brought to mind a government policy that may have contributed to the company’s restructuring. No, it's not tariffs.

  8. RNAi vs. mRNA: Two Therapies, Two CDMO Strategies 7/1/2025

    The biotech industry is often described in grand dichotomies such as innovator vs. generic, small vs. large molecule, or clinical vs. commercial. These differentiators influence development and manufacturing, CDMO selection and outsourcing strategies. There are also nuanced pairings, such as mRNA vs. RNAi.

  9. Lonza Bets On Biologics. What's It Mean For You? 6/26/2025

    It’s a large and universally recognizable CDMO, so this matters. Swiss-based powerhouse Lonza will increase its focus on biologics, and “advanced synthesis” including for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), cell and gene therapies (CGT), and mRNA therapeutics. Will other CDMOs follow suit? What's this say about the future of development outsourcing and our industry? 

  10. How A Biotech Navigates the CDMO Frenzy For GLP-1 Services 6/17/2025

    Doug Bakan enjoys all the attention CDMOs give him nowadays at his biotech with GLP-1-related programs. But how is he selecting his external partners? Which are most trustworthy? Can he discern what they say is what they they're going to do? Here are his thoughts.