In September 2026, senior pharmaceutical and biotech executives gathered in Basel for External Manufacturing Leaders, PharmaSource’s invitation-only think tank. 

Inside the report:

• Where AI is earning its place and where it is still noise: three builds that compressed months of work into hours, and the point at which quote comparison starts inventing numbers
• Why requests to co-fund CDMO digital modernization on a 50:50 split are meeting resistance
• What “strategic partnership” means when the phrase is used by everyone and practiced by few, including the capacity trade that gives a CDMO 70% of outsourced volume
• How biotechs with no volume leverage got a CDMO to prioritize them
• How networks are being rebuilt while the geopolitical picture keeps moving, and why the position on tariffs has shifted from wait-and-see to product-by-product execution

Attendees included senior professionals from Bayer, BeOne Medicines, Bristol Myers Squibb, CDR-Life, Johnson & Johnson, Kenvue, Organon, Nestlé, Neurocrine Biosciences, Roche, SEITO Biologics, Sobi, UCB and Takeda.

Download this report to access our takeaways from the think tank, co-hosted with Rezon Bio.