Increasingly bold outsourcing will help big pharma cut costs

By Nick Taylor

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Covance Pharmaceutical industry

Big pharma outsourcing will become much bolder in the next 12-18 months as companies attempt to “dramatically attack cost structures”, according to the Covance CEO.

The patent cliff has almost arrived and big pharma will, and has to, respond by reducing fixed costs, said Joe Herring, CEO of Covance. By inking deals with Eli Lilly and Sanofi-aventis Covance began a strategic alliance trend that it expects to grow in coming years.

It’s going to be a ‘newsy’ 12 to 18 months​”, said Herring. Covance is discussing a broad range of strategic alliances, including asset or staff transfers, but transactions are on everyone’s agenda and Herring expects other contract research organisations (CRO) to make similar deals.

C-suite executives at top biopharm now understand CROs, recognise services have eclipsed in-house capabilities and have seen asset transfers work, said Herring. Armed with this knowledge, and faced with the need to “dramatically attack cost structures​”, biopharm is keen to make deals.

Success of previous strategic alliances has been particularly important, said Herring. Many people thought the Lilly deal would fail, said Herring, but two years on both companies are happy with the transaction.

Similarly, Sanofi offered its Porcheville, France and Alnwick, UK sites to 30 companies, said Herring, but it was Covance that could make the deal work. “It’s a fabulous deal for Covance and Sanofi​”, said Herring.

Having made deals with Sanofi and Lilly, as well as Merck & Co, Covance is now the CRO people think of when considering making a strategic transaction, said Herring, and this will help it secure business.

Previous strategic alliances

Since acquiring the Greenfield, Indiana, US site from Lilly Covance has added a number of capabilities while keeping costs down. Furthermore, the deal gave Covance the employees and capabilities to enter the drug discovery support sector which Herring predicts will grow.

Expanding capabilities has helped Covance secure work with 50 clients, plus Lilly, at Greenfield. Revenues from non-Lilly clients at Greenfield, plus non-Merck work at Seattle, Washington, US, totalled $50m (€37m) in 2010.

Covance acquired the Seattle genomics laboratory from Merck in July 2009. Since then Covance has added 15 clients, said Herring, and every major pharmaceutical company has visited the site.

The Seattle site offers genomics services, such as genotyping and gene sequencing, and Herring said pharma must learn how to buy these services that have traditionally been performed in-house.

Covance expects the Sanofi deal to account for much of its 2011 revenue growth and 85 per cent of income from the alliance will come from early stage. Late stage work for Sanofi is expected to generate meaningful revenues from 2012 onwards.

Related news

Show more

Related products

show more

Using Define-XML to build more efficient studies

Using Define-XML to build more efficient studies

Content provided by Formedix | 14-Nov-2023 | White Paper

It is commonly thought that Define-XML is simply a dataset descriptor: a way to document what datasets look like, including the names and labels of datasets...

Overcoming rapid growth challenges with process liquid preparation

Overcoming rapid growth challenges with process liquid preparation

Content provided by Thermo Fisher Scientific - Process Liquid Preparation Services | 01-Nov-2023 | Case Study

A growing contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) was challenged with the need to quickly expand their process liquid and buffer preparation...

Related suppliers

Follow us

Products

View more

Webinars