12 Questions With Trenton M. Johnson
Trenton M. Johnson is a seasoned project management leader with 27+ years of experience working in the biopharma industry from both the drug developer and CDMO perspective. His diverse background spans multiple leadership roles in account management, operations, and pharmaceutical project management across drug modalities. Currently the Senior Director of CMC Portfolio Management at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Johnson previously held key positions at Baxter, Lonza, and numerous small and mid-sized biotech organisations.
What are the main responsibilities of your current role? I lead the North American CMC Portfolio Management team to drive critical customer relationships and partnerships by proactively identifying and solving potential barriers to execution and facilitating client fulfilment in an expedited fashion. My team is structured to support customers leveraging Accelerator Drug Development, Thermo Fisher Scientific’s 360° CDMO and CRO solutions. In this role, I collaborate with counterparts from our clinical research organisation to provide centralised oversight and coordinated management of key milestone delivery across the drug development journey. Some specific areas of support we provide include functioning as a centralised point of contact and advocate for customer needs, facilitating cross-site joint steering committees, and delivering proactive and efficient risk and issue management across the entire programme, leveraging integrated tools and processes.
What is your background prior to this role and how did it prepare you for the work you do now? At the beginning of my professional career, I was in the customer role at small and mid-sized biotech organisations that outsourced production to various CDMOs globally. I then moved to the CDMO side, serving customers as a project manager of clinical and commercial programmes, as well as roles in PMO and account management. This exposure to both sides has provided a unique perspective that helps me to anticipate customer needs and foster collaboration both internally and externally.
What are some of the biggest challenges your customers are facing? Our pharma and biotech customers typically experience challenges in the following areas: tech transfer complexity, high clinical trial failure rates, uncertain demand trajectories, pressure to deliver under increasingly tight timelines, and regulatory variability across the globe. From a logistical perspective, we often hear feedback regarding communication gaps and other inefficiencies from customers trying to manage multiple vendor partners at once.
How is your team structured to address these customer challenges? An integrated outsourcing model leveraging a single vendor for clinical research, manufacturing, and clinical supply has the potential to reduce redundancies and bureaucracy, enhance data flow, and improve alignment across functional areas. This minimises time spent on coordination and enables faster, more informed decision-making and proactive risk mitigation. My team – the CMC Portfolio Management team – is structured to align with development and manufacturing sites regionally so we can quickly react to challenges that arise with product development and technical transfers. Additionally, this regional alignment is also seen with our clinical research colleagues to address customer concerns and challenges, ensure knowledge of local regulatory requirements, and enable convenient communication in relevant time zones.
What motivates you about working in pharma? My entire career has centred around the patient; both on the innovator side and on the contract manufacturing side. I have always found myself gravitating toward areas of unmet clinical need and am committed to enabling the delivery of new therapies for those patient communities. It is what inspires me every day.
What are the most important professional skills in your work and how do you hone them? A combination of scientific and product development knowledge paired with interpersonal skills is critical for success in portfolio management of integrated programmes. Having developed and launched products commercially myself, I have to tap into lessons learned from successes and failures with raw material availability, molecular stability, quality issues, and supply chain and logistics obstacles to name a few areas. Continuous learning and training in core project management fundamentals through PMP certification is also key, as well as advances in science and pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. Self-improvement through active listening, seeking feedback from peers and customers, and negotiation training helps enable personal growth.
What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the industry right now? We see a lot of external factors causing headwinds for biopharma and biotech customers, such as geopolitical shifts and uncertainty, economic volatility, cost pressures, and tariff and taxation changes (low-tax areas of the world are no longer as appealing). Selecting a CDMO partner is also becoming increasingly complex, with many newer players offering expansive capacity, but minimal technical experience. Drug developers have a lot on their plates, but these challenges are also driving innovation and different ways of working, which is exciting to see.
What excites you most about current industry trends? There is a real drive to be more efficient in how processes are developed. A key mechanism that enables this acceleration is the inclusion of AI and machine learning in numerous aspects of clinical research and drug development. It’s exciting to see how AI is being used to optimise drug discovery and design, as well as automate the more manual and repetitive tasks in our standard workflows so team members can focus on higher level strategic work.
In your opinion, what has changed most about the industry since the start of your career? Advancements in technology such as single-use systems, automation, and AI-driven quality processes, ever-increasing regulatory requirements, and a shift from small molecule drugs towards biologics and personalised medicine are some of the more significant trends I have observed. With increasing focus on these complex biologics, I’ve also noticed a corresponding increase in demand for outsourcing support, as drug developers seek specialised expertise and technologies. CDMOs and CROs have expanded their scope of services to provide more holistic support across the drug development journey.
What do you think pharma will look like in 15 years? 50 years? For the 15 year horizon, I believe the competition in pharma and advances in technology, particularly with AI and machine learning, will enable drug discovery and development to be conducted faster and more efficiently. In 50 years, the trends towards targeted deliveries at the nano and cellular level and advanced genomics will drive proactive preventative and curative treatments. Therapeutically, I anticipate we will see continued growth in the next 15 years in in oncology treated with biologic-based immunotherapies and neurology treatments. Personally, my hope is to see an increase in autoimmune disease treatments that tackle severe and chronic conditions life Type 1 diabetes, MS, and other such life-altering conditions.
What are your hobbies? What do you do in your free time? I am a former competitive, and now avid recreational, road and mountain cyclist. I always loved the strategy and competition of racing when I was younger, but have grown to enjoy the self-motivation of personal goal setting and challenging my own limits.
What advice would you give to a young person starting out in your field? I am biased, but I think pursuing a project management role in pharma is one of the best training grounds in the entire industry. It provides exposure to so many different facets of the business (scientific teams in drug development, quality, business, etc.) and it is great for personal development. Project management is also about people, both internal and external stakeholders. It's about building relationships, understanding motivations, and creating an environment where brilliant minds can solve complex problems. Whether it's developing life-saving medications or negotiating contracts, the human element is always at the centre.
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