Pharma becoming more aggressive outsourcing buyer

The latest industry Perspective research paper from USA-headquartered EquaTerra depicts the pharmaceutical industry as reaching a critical inflection point - either change operating models or face long-term decline. In response, EquaTerra, a business advisory firm, reports that pharmaceutical companies have been actively adopting alternative service delivery models - shared services, information technology and business process outsourcing - across general and administrative support functions. Now, however, they are poised to expand outsourcing into more strategic business activities, it adds.

As the contracting market for pharmaceuticals matures, both traditional multinational outsourcing and Indian service providers, who initially entered the market via information technology and IT outsourcing, are targeting the knowledge-intensive pharmaceutical industry with expanded business process and knowledge process outsourcing services.

Not surprisingly, says EquaTerra, these providers cite the top three business drivers for their services as: