Recipharm Says Developing Trust is Key to Taking on Contracts

Earlier this month the Sweden-based CMO announced it had been contracted to supply PledPharma with material for Phase IIb clinical trials of a new drug designed to prevent chemotherapy side-effects.

The deal is not the first time the two companies have worked together. Last year Recipharm helped PledPharma restart a trial of mangafodipir, its candidate heart attack treatment, after the original CMO abandoned the supply contract.

Outsourcing-pharma.com wanted to know more about Recipharm’s relationship with fellow Sweden-based PledPharma and just what difficulties a CMO faces when picking up a contract begun by another organisation.

A spokesman told us that: “It is always challenging to get into a project where a collaboration has started with a another supplier. Often all information is not captured in written reports. When you get into a project from the start trust develops gradually in a natural way.​

“However, when responsibility is transferred you often get rapidly into a very intense phase without the parties having enough time to get to know each other and develop a mutual understanding​.”

Recipharm went on to explain that taking on such work usually involves adapting manufacturing processes adding that: “Recipharm has a very experienced work force that are very stimulated by technical challenges. Hence introducing new modifications to our manufacturing technology is usually relatively straight forward as in this case​.”

Commercial contracts​

We wondered – given the level of trust Recipharm has developed with PledPharma over the course of the two projects – whether the CMO has already won the commercial production deals.

The spokesman told us that: “I cannot comment on this. We always strive to provide excellent services as we are convinced that that this is the basis for profitable long term relationships with customers.​

“We want our customers to stay with us for the entire development process and into commercial manufacture and in most cases they like to stick with us​.”