We live during a time when communication, and the transmission and storage of information, are faster, easier and more powerful than ever. So why is it that we still fail to communicate critical information to those who need it most, when they need it most, and in a form that they can understand?  I thought about this when results came in from our 10th annual survey on outsourcing (Feature, p. 36).

Overall, results were positive, suggesting that operating pharma companies and contract services providers are moving toward strategic outsourcing, and true partnership. As sponsors focus on core strengths, growth in demand for services continues across the board, from manufacturing and analytical to preclinical.

However, a communications breakdown seems to be occurring at the most basic level. All respondents, whether from contract service firms or operating pharma or biotech companies, agreed that communications and cultural issues were the most serious challenges in any outsourcing relationship.

Sponsors claim that some providers aren’t meeting project goals or deadlines, while service providers complain that a few of their customers aren’t communicating or sharing enough information with them.  “Couldn’t you just pick up the phone?” asked one respondent. “Tell us what you want,” and “They don’t give us the information that we need,” said others.

Other disconnects center around quality. Sponsors cited product quality as the most important reason why they choose to work with a specific service provider. However, they viewed oversight of the contract company’s vendors and suppliers as a major challenge. 
This can have serious repercussions when service providers are based overseas, as Helena Champion’s analysis of recent regulatory and quality problems offshore (page 66) shows. As she says,  sponsor “face time” on the CMO or CRO plant floor is critical, as is fluency in their language if they are offshore.

Are we over-using 21st century tools to communicate ineffectively?  Is it time to revive more primitive methods, and to reinject the personal into our dealings with peers and business partners? Can’t “face time” be a good thing, especially when it prevents misunderstandings and expensive errors?

But, when it comes to data, do we need to get smarter? Ironically, in an age where we routinely talk about data in terabytes, pharma still takes a limited (univariate) approach to much of its data, preventing it from seizing the full power of today’s sophisticated IT. Spectroscopist Emil Ciurczak discusses the need for a multivariate approach on p. 30.  How else to break down silos and encourage a true multidisciplinary spirit within pharma companies and their partners?

Clearly, IT platforms offer a way for pharma to solve many of its biggest problems, and more CRO’s are using analytics to improve R&D efficiency, as Kristin Brooks writes on p. 46. We see what might be possible in the future in IT projects at Merck and Pfizer, which recently won “Elite 100” prizes from Informationweek.com. Merck won for its use of Big Data and cloud computing to analyze vaccine yield loss and improve results, efforts that allow the company to go through 15 billion calculations and make over 5.5 million bath-to-batch comparisons. Pfizer won for its Precision Medicine Analytics Ecosystem, which connects genomics, clinical trial and electronic medical record data to improve its ability to spot niche opportunities.

Can any company take advantage of power like this if it still takes a siloed approach to processes, and a univariate approach to data?

How effective are your day-to-day communications with peers and business partners? Do you speak with them regularly? Are you giving them the information that they need, or sending a perfunctory data dump and letting them sort things out themselves?  Please write in and let us know your thoughts.


Agnes Shanley, Editor
[email protected]