Will the consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry level off at any time soon or is it here to stay and will it even intensify?

Denis Angioletti: Consolidation in the pharma industry is a process which looks likely to continue for a few more years, pushed forward by the need of pharma companies to keep their revenues growing, improve cost efficiency and expand their pipeline faster. It may continue to see both megamergers as well as the acquisition of start-ups and small companies by larger firms.

From the perspective of CROs/CDMOs, this does not automatically mean the need to undergo the same process, at least from the point of view of their own business scope. In many cases, the M&A processes are even generating opportunities for CRO/CDMO companies where a merged company makes divestments of sites or products, or decides to focus its own resources on a certain area of priority leaving a lot to outsourcing. The same comes from the need of these companies to reduce their fixed costs, ending up looking for preferred suppliers to add value to their internal capabilities.

In such an environment, what is important for a CRO/CDMO company is to have its own excellences so as to become the partner of choice for the pharma industry; one of the big issues during an M&A is that it comes as a dramatically complex process and what anyone would like in such a situation is to have a partner to relieve the strain. In this respect, independent mid-size CDMO companies with specialized technologies do have a great opportunity in being able to deliver their service with faster decision- making processes and customer-oriented services as compared to larger and more complex firms.

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