“Strategic partnerships — what a buzzword this has become in our industry.” Kaan Fabian-Kekec and Clarita Havermeier at Simon-Kucher, unveiled exclusive new research at the start of CDMO Live Europe 2026.
The research by Simon-Kucher and PharmaSource draws on 120+ senior executives across pharma and CDMOs globally. It reveals many areas of goal alignment, but highlights an execution gap as late-phase CDMOs are meeting established pharma’s expectations just 44% of the time. The sharpest gaps are not quality or timelines. It’s pricing and supply resilience.
Shared Language, Different Meanings
Asked to define what separates a true strategic partner from a transactional supplier, pharma and CDMOs showed genuine common ground at the top. High levels of trust, transparency, and open communication ranked first across both sides. Joint long-term planning and shared strategic objectives came second. Willingness to share risks and benefits, third.
Beyond that, the rankings diverged. Factors that pharma places significant weight on — flexibility and responsiveness, integrated quality and regulatory collaboration — don’t appear with the same prominence in how CDMOs define a strategic partnership. The practical implication is that both parties enter a relationship with different blueprints and rarely surface the difference before the work begins.
The research makes it clear that a single commercial narrative aimed at “pharma” as a category doesn’t hold. Emerging biopharma and established large pharma are not the same buyer. Early-phase and late-phase CDMOs are not the same seller.
The Fulfilment Gap
The research produced two scores for each pharma–CDMO pairing. Goal alignment measures how well each side understands what the other prioritises. Expectation fulfilment measures whether pharma considers those needs to be met. The distance between the two scores is where the story is.
For late-phase CDMOs partnered with established pharma, goal alignment reaches 77%. Reasonable, on the surface. But drilling into the composition reveals two significant misreads. Partnership-oriented price models rank second in importance for established pharma, carrying 13% of preference share. CDMOs assign it just 5% — underweighting it by more than double. In the opposite direction, CDMOs rate ability to meet tight timelines at 22% preference share. Pharma places it at 10%. CDMOs are optimising for something pharma has already largely deprioritised.
However, the fulfilment score for late-phase CDMOs and established pharma (pictured below) is just 44%. Across the full range of criteria pharma uses to assess its CDMO partners, expectations are being met less than half the time.
On partnership-oriented pricing specifically — the criterion pharma ranks second in importance — 54% of established pharma respondents say almost no or only a few of their CDMO partners are fulfilling their expectations. Even on timelines, where CDMOs believe they are over-delivering, fulfilment falls short.
The emerging biopharma picture shifts in composition. Cost-effectiveness and ability to meet tight timelines both rank higher for this segment than for established pharma, while partnership-oriented pricing moves down. Goal alignment between emerging biopharma and late-phase CDMOs reaches 82%. But CDMOs are still misreading the cost signal — treating speed as the dominant priority when pharma is weighting cost as equally critical. Fulfilment for this pairing sits at 50%. Better than established pharma, but consistently average is not enough to stand out.
Pricing Models: The Clearest Commercial Gap
The pricing data reveals a market that has started moving but hasn’t moved far enough. Milestone-based payments are already widely used. Around half of respondents use discounted rates tied to long-term commitments and take-or-pay models. Roughly a third have started using performance-based pricing and dedicated suites.
The future preference data is where the pressure builds. More than 60% of both emerging and established pharma want to see greater use of performance-based pricing. The models least used today are the ones pharma most wants to use in the next twelve months. On performance-based pricing, late-phase CDMOs broadly match pharma’s future ambition. But end-to-end CDMOs show a meaningful risk of under-serving future demand — on performance-based models, on dedicated suites, and on discounted rates tied to long-term commitments.
The commercial argument for making the shift isn’t just responsiveness to pharma preference. Having skin in the game changes the nature of a value proposition claim. It becomes verifiable rather than asserted — a different kind of credibility entirely.
Supply Resilience: Aligned on Measures, Not on Evidence
Supply resilience is the one area where the research found broad structural alignment — with one exception significant enough to overshadow the rest.
Pharma’s five proof points for global reliability were ranked in order:
On criteria two through five, CDMO measures in place largely match what pharma is looking for. However, for the most important to pharma, the gap is not narrow. 58% of pharma cite proven ability to maintain supply during past disruptions as a priority proof point. Just 13% of CDMOs have measures in place to address it — the largest single discrepancy the research identified.
“CDMOs need to stop talking about resilience in the future tense. Share your track record. Share examples where you have successfully navigated through uncertainties to maintain continuity. This is becoming a key commercial topic and a selection criterion. Be prepared to bring the data.”
Recommendations to elevate your partnerships
Kaan and Clarita shared these takeaways from the research:
For Pharma
- Clarify your priorities before engagement starts, not once you’re already in it.
- Be honest about what you’re prepared to commit in return for what you’re asking of your CDMO.
- Signal your pricing model preferences at RFP stage — not when you’re already at the negotiation table.
- Establish governance structures before the first problem emerges, not in response to one.
- Share feedback openly and continuously. Misalignment compounds when it goes unsaid.
For CDMOs
- Define the partnership before the project starts — objectives, success criteria, and governance model.
- Stop pitching pharma as a single audience. Emerging biopharma and established pharma have different priorities and your commercial narrative needs to reflect that.
- Consistent delivery on pharma’s top priorities is what differentiates you. Find out what those are by segment, then close the gaps.
- Cost-plus is a ceiling. Move toward performance-based models where you can put skin in the game and make your value proposition verifiable.
- Don’t promise resilience — prove it. Bring the track record, the data, and the examples into every commercial conversation.
“The gap in this industry is not ambition — it is also not capability. It’s the conversations that both sides keep deferring. Have them earlier.”
Kaan Fabian-Kekec
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