Building Successful CRO/CDMO Partnerships Series: Expert Insights for 2025

The Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) market is projected to reach $309.5 billion by 2028, driven by surging demand for outsourced pharmaceutical services. This growth reflects a significant shift in the industry; according to EY Parthenon, CDMO customer bases have evolved from primarily large pharmaceutical companies to include smaller biotech firms developing drug pipelines without manufacturing experience.

In this context, building effective partnerships with Contract Research Organizations (CROs) and CDMOs has become increasingly critical for pharmaceutical and biotech companies looking to accelerate drug development and optimize resources. 

To learn how to best establish and maintain these critical relationships, we spoke with Dr. Dale Cameron, an experienced pharmaceutical industry consultant with decades of experience managing CRO/CDMO partnerships.

Let's take a closer look at the key elements that contribute to successful long-term collaborations:

Start with Clear Communication Infrastructure

The success of any CRO/CDMO partnership heavily depends on establishing robust communication channels from day one. “If you take care of all the hard stuff in your kickoff meeting when the problems start to come, you'll have a framework to fall back on,” Dr. Cameron said.

This means addressing fundamental questions upfront: “Who's going to do the work? When is the work going to get done? Where's the work going to get done? How's the work going to get done? And then how you fit into it as a client,” he said.

Establishing clarity from the start helps prevent misunderstandings and sets expectations for all parties involved. But he emphasized that this is just the start. To continue successfully, partnerships need to include:

• Regular meetings with consistent attendance from key team members. “If everyone's involved in the first three meetings and then by the sixth meeting, half the team is showing up... that suggests to me that although they're communicating, apathy is starting to kick in,” Dr. Cameron said.
• Shared documentation systems for tracking progress and keeping stakeholders updated. “Having a document that's updated regularly is a key communication tool,” Dr. Cameron noted. “Then I don't have to call them and ask for status updates. I can take a look myself and know where we are."
• Clear channels and protocols for raising and addressing concerns, ensuring issues can be identified and resolved quickly.

Build Trust Through Strategic Information Sharing

True partnership with a CRO/CDMO goes beyond basic outsourcing; it requires creating an environment where both parties feel invested in the project's success. This means empowering partners to contribute ideas, raise concerns, and take initiative in problem-solving.

“I want everyone to have ownership in my project,” Dr. Cameron explained. “They will do the risk mitigation for me. They will find the traps in advance because they want the project to succeed.”

This collaborative mindset particularly matters in complex projects where innovation and creative problem-solving are essential. Partners should feel empowered to suggest alternative approaches and raise potential issues. “Do they value innovation? Are they just going to do what I told them to do? Or are they going to see the value of doing something different?" Dr. Cameron asked.

One key aspect of fostering ownership is comprehensive information sharing. In medicinal chemistry projects, sharing biological data helps partners understand the broader context of their work.

“I want them to understand why certain things are being asked,” Dr. Cameron said. “It empowers them to push back if they see something that they think they should do differently or they see a problem with the compound(s) I'm suggesting.”

Implement Proactive Risk Management

In research and development partnerships, failure is often part of the process. The key is having systems in place to identify, assess, and address challenges before they become critical issues. This means establishing clear metrics for success, defining decision points, and maintaining open channels for addressing concerns.

Key risk management strategies include:

• Setting clear project boundaries:  “I could put an FTE on one compound for a year and still never make it,” Dr. Cameron said. Successful partnerships require honest discussions about project scope, timelines, and potential roadblocks before work begins. Understanding when to make a shift in thinking or actions is key.
  
  “If it's an early-stage project where they're making tons of compounds and they may not make the ones you want, you have to have a system in place to understand when to pull the plug.”
• Fostering open communication: “I'd rather have a company tell me this isn't working out. We need to fix this, because not correcting a problem is a major pitfall,” Dr. Cameron said. This might mean replacing team members, changing methods, or stopping work on particular compounds—but the key is addressing issues early through collaborative solutions.
• Maintaining detailed documentation:  Technical documentation plays a crucial role in risk mitigation. As Dr. Cameron explained, “If scientists observe issues, like getting a black solution every time they try to make a compound, that tells us we're likely getting degradation products instead of the desired reaction.” This level of detailed observation helps teams identify and address problems early.
• Creating a culture of transparency: Risk management fails when team members feel unable to report problems. “If employees don't feel comfortable speaking up in front of leadership, they're unlikely to document negative results,” Dr. Cameron said. “That means crucial information stays trapped in someone's head rather than being shared with the team.”

Managing Successful Project Transitions

As projects progress from early development to scale-up phases, maintaining partnership effectiveness requires careful attention to changing needs and dynamics. Project transitions often require reevaluating whether your current partner has the right capabilities for the next phase. 

“As your project progresses, you may need to reassess: Do you trust the current team? Are they the right people for the next phase?” Dr. Cameron explained.

Here are some key considerations for successful transitions:

• Maintaining leadership engagement: During transitions, strong leadership involvement becomes crucial. “It's essential to see upper leadership actively involved again during transitions,” Dr. Cameron noted. “Their engagement demonstrates commitment and ensures proper oversight of the transition process.”
• Knowledge transfer: Effective transitions require comprehensive knowledge sharing between teams. 
  
  “Understanding the history—what compounds were made, what challenges were faced, what solutions worked—this context is invaluable for new teams,” Dr. Cameron emphasized. This historical knowledge helps teams avoid repeating past mistakes and build on previous successes. The solution to a new problem may rest with the former team.

Consider Geographic and Cultural Alignment

As we explored in our article on the Benefits of Working with a North American CRO/CDMO, proximity and local partnerships have become increasingly important in the pharmaceutical industry. Working with regional partners enables secure shipping, real-time communication, and a truly collaborative approach that can accelerate development timelines. 

Organizations that choose international partnerships need to carefully evaluate whether potential cost advantages or specialized expertise outweigh the inherent complications.

“Collaboration barriers when you're working outside of North America can be huge,” Dr. Cameron explained. “Communication in North America can be largely colloquial, especially between Canada and the US. There's just a way of communicating that can be totally different from the rest of the world.”

GLC: Your Trusted CRO/CDMO Partner

GL CHEMTEC is passionate about your success and committed to solving your most complex chemistry challenges. We offer fast, flexible, cutting-edge solutions to take your medicinal chemistry and early-stage small-molecule routes to the next level. Our commitment to a collaborative partnership means we scale and adapt precisely to meet your evolving needs.

GL CHEMTEC provides:

• A secure North American alternative to overseas providers, offering R&D labs, Kilo labs and scale-up facilities in the Greater Toronto area
• A local partner who will ensure secure shipping, real-time communication and the highest levels of IP protection for your early stage work
• A highly customer-centric culture with a 20+ year track record of success
• ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 13485:2016 certifications
• A GMP compliant cleanroom with GMP Reactor Suites coming online soon