Building Better CDMO Relationships: ten23 health’s Blueprint for Successful Pharmaceutical Partnerships

“My ambition for being a CDMO is that there will always be technical challenges, but I want to be transparent about the challenge and provide options to a customer.”

Hanns-Christian Mahler, CEO of ten23 health, brings 15 years of sponsor-side experience to his current role leading a sterile product CDMO focused on drug product development, manufacturing and testing. His unique perspective from both sides of the outsourcing relationship provides valuable insights into building successful partnerships.

In the latest PharmaSource podcast episode recorded at CDMO Live 2025, Hanns explains why transparency, realistic planning and early development integration are essential strategies for avoiding costly manufacturing failures and building sustainable relationships.

Building Successful Partnerships Through Transparency and Clear Communication

Effective CDMO partnerships require more than just technical expertise—they demand a foundation built on open communication and clearly defined expectations. Hanns emphasises that successful relationships start with establishing transparent processes from the outset.

“When I look at partnerships, the first thing that comes to mind is the sponsor and outsourcing partner relationship, which should be built on transparency and very clear rules of engagement. Be very clear on what the expected outcome would be.”

The key to managing inevitable challenges lies in having robust mechanisms for problem-solving and decision-making. Hanns advocates for a collaborative approach that empowers customers to make informed choices:

“We need to have clear mechanisms in place when things don’t go well and how you approach that. It’s been always my dream of being in the CDMO industry, having been on the sponsor side for 15 years before. My ambition as a CDMO is that whilst there will always be technical challenges, I want to be transparent about the challenge and provide options to customers so they can decide based on available information, with pros and cons and a recommended way forward.”

Avoiding Critical Mistakes: The Importance of Early Development Planning

One of the most common and costly mistakes in pharmaceutical outsourcing is the temptation to rush directly into manufacturing without adequate development work. Hanns identifies this as a critical failure point that can derail entire projects.

“What I’m seeing sometimes is that clients want to immediately jump into manufacturing and think we don’t need to do any development. Just it cannot be that challenging. It’s just water based formulations in a glass vial or syringe. And then basically just go and just push it to PPQ batches and then you see failures.”

The solution lies in realistic planning and comprehensive risk assessment from the project’s inception. Hanns advocates for integrating development expertise early in the process to anticipate and mitigate potential manufacturing challenges:

“I think it’s when I would say plans need to be realistic. I think we need to always think about what happens if things go wrong. Not many CMOs actually have a strong development expertise and that has been a key and very important element for us to include into our development offering, into our manufacturing offerings. That’s where our idea is to anticipate challenges that may arise during the manufacturing itself early in the process.”

Expanding Partnership Networks Beyond Traditional CDMO Relationships

Modern pharmaceutical development requires collaboration that extends beyond the traditional sponsor-CDMO relationship. Hanns highlights the importance of building strategic alliances across the entire value chain to deliver comprehensive solutions.

“I would also think of partnerships in the sense of collaborating along the value chain. So we’ve been, for example, last year partnering very extensively with device companies such as IP Sumit, where we are supporting our clients in developing device solutions with the various stakeholders and partners.”

This expanded view of partnerships recognises that successful drug development often requires multiple specialised partners working in coordination:

“Partnerships will not only be important between customers and outsourcing partners, but amongst outsourcing partners, CDMO functions and suppliers—that will be essential as well.”

Embedding Sustainability as a Competitive Advantage

Sustainability has become a core differentiator for forward-thinking CDMOs, though industry adoption remains inconsistent. Hanns positions ten23 Health as a leader in this space, having achieved B Corporation status and operating net positive whilst targeting science-based emissions reductions.

“Our commitments at ten23 are patients, people, and planet. Very early on, basically when we founded the company, it was very clear that the planet focus should be very closely embedded into our DNA.”

However, Hanns notes a disconnect between CDMO sustainability efforts and pharmaceutical industry procurement practices:

“I’m currently also partly frustrated because it seems it’s not a big enough topic even for pharma companies that we are collaborating with. So I always ask, I wish you would do a little bit more due diligence on us on the sustainability because I do think we have a lot to offer.”

Looking ahead, Hanns predicts sustainability will become a fundamental requirement rather than an optional consideration:

“I truly believe that in five years from now, it will be a right to operate such, like quality. So I’m hoping that actually the pharma sector will become a little bit more thinking of sustainability to be ingrained in the selection of CDMOs.”