Drug Development Series Luncheon | Virtual Companies: Making Big Out of Being Small (Session II)

A handful of employees in Northern California connect via Skype with a lab in India or China. Multiple collaborations with contractors are managed remotely. This is often the phenotype of many start-ups and young life sciences companies today. While outsourcing provides some clear advantages in terms of agility, flexibility and burn rates, is it a good model for biopharma development and its leaders?

Rather than managing their own corporate assets, CEOs and other top executives are faced with the seemingly easier challenge of managing “partner” or “associate” relationships. Yet, every outsourced stop along the supply and production chains holds the potential of contagion, exposing a company to litigation and diminishing the quality and even viability of its offerings.