THE ONE THING BIG PHARMA CAN'T OUTSOURCE—CULPABILITY

What has outsourcing done for Big Pharma?

Big pharma companies began outsourcing assets and activities in the early to mid 1980s.

This is what world leading exponent of procurement and supply, Professor Andrew Cox, described it in Taming The Big Pharma Monster: by Speaking Truth to Power

All of these recent developments lead to a serious questioning of the strategic outsourcing undertaken by the major pharmaceutical companies in the recent past.

Not only has there been an inadvertent loss of critical assets, but also an increase in competition and a loss of control of key suppliers and supply chains.

Unfortunately, this has occurred at a time when competition from generic companies has increased and when profits from patented products have been in decline. The result has been an industry experiencing widespread decline in profitability, now responding with short-term, knee-jerk merger and acquisition strategies.

Loss of critical assets - includes product development, manufacture, quali…