The new service will provide customers with reserve manufacturing capacity at its facilities in Italy that can be employed if primary production operations elsewhere are interrupted.
Patheon’s executive VP of global strategy, sales and marketing Geoffrey Glass told Outsourcing-pharma.com that backup contracts are a must for a drug sector under increasing regulatory scrutiny.
“With the raft of quality issues that are going on in the industry we see [the formation of backup contracts] as something that many companies are focused on at very senior levels… specifically for high value products…where continuity of supply can mean everything to a company.”
Glass also suggested that the service may be important in generating additional business for the CMO, suggesting that customers that use the new service may, in time, choose to sign larger manufacturing deals.