Outsourcers Are Feeling Uneasy About Continuity of Supply

By Kate Hammeke, VP of Market Research, Industry Standard Research (ISR) @ISRreports

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to stymie travel, in-person meetings, and on-site work, the complications felt in the outsourced manufacturing space appear to be increasing. Concerns are particularly strong among drug product outsourcers for both small molecules and biologics. In fact, when reviewing the responses from Industry Standard Research’s annual CDMO Benchmarking research, where ISR has asked about how the pandemic has impacted outsourced manufacturing activities each of the past two years, the data show proportionally more outsourcers were impacted in 2021 than in 2020. Among small molecule drug product outsourcers, 40% confirmed their company experienced manufacturing complications tied to the pandemic during 2020. One year later, 57% of small molecule drug product outsourcers said the same, an increase of 17 percentage points. On the biologic side of drug product manufacturing, a year ago 51% of respondents confirmed manufacturing complications as a result of the pandemic. In 2021, that figure increased by eight percentage points to 59% of respondents.