What We Learned from the Pharma CMO Summit in Lisbon

The Pharma CMO Summit in Lisbon in June was a good opportunity to touch base with the market and exchange news on serialization readiness-among CMOs. And serialization readiness is a very concerning issue for Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMOs) in the pharmaceutical industry: it seems that only 50% of American CMOs had started their journey to serialization by May 2017! CMOs catering for European markets still have a little bit more time but, as our partner and organizer Supply Chain Wizard pointed out during the summit’s opening remarks, by the end of 2016 not even half of them had initiated their first line project. This means there will be bottle-neck situations in the run-up to imminent deadlines.

This is the reason why Adents is expanding its global network of trusted solution partners across the globe to be able to implement serialization on our customers’ production lines as timely as possible, no matter where. Only with a reliable network of solution partners can serialization solution vendors provide sufficient capacities to serve all their clients.

Many, especially smaller CMOs, also lack the resources to efficiently tackle the challenge of serialization. Again, an experienced solution partner can help here. He will ensure a CMO gets a serialization solution that fits its needs. He will coordinate between vendors to provide you with hardware components and an interoperable serialization software like Adents Seriza that can even work with existing equipment should you not wish to invest in new production lines. This is, for example, why Chartwell Pharmaceuticals has chosen Adents Seriza, as serialization expert Chuck Sailer pointed out in his presentation.

The biggest consensus across all presentations and during conversations we had with other participants was that flexibility is key! Flexibility can be ensured through a centrally configurable serialization solution that allows you to quickly react to changing legislation (long-term compliance) or pharma customer requirements (i.e. new markets). Being able to quickly integrate new regulations can be a huge competitive advantage for a CMO.