Company Profile – Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific is the world leader in serving science, and our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, increasing productivity in their laboratories, or improving patient health through diagnostics or the development and manufacture of life-changing therapies – we are here to support them.

Many of our pharmaceutical and biotech customers face a major challenge in drug development and clinical research: growing complexity that increases both costs and the risk of delays that can slow the delivery of new medicines to patients and impact drug sponsors’ return on investment. Our Accelerator Drug Development model addresses these factors with integrated contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) and clinical research organisation (CRO) solutions.

In today’s uncertain economic and political environment, pharmaceutical and biotechnology innovators may face many hurdles on the path to bring their new therapies to market. Escalating development costs, new modalities, increasing scientific and logistical demands, regulatory complexity, and mounting pressure to accelerate timelines are creating unprecedented challenges. From a financial perspective specifically, total R&D cost per approved new drug has been estimated in recent studies with different methodologies at $1.3 billion to $2.8 billion, inclusive of the cost of research failures and the time value of money.^[1-5] With clinical trials accounting for 70% of total R&D expenditures, inefficiencies in trial design and execution, supply chain management, and manufacturing coordination represent major cost drivers.

Outsourcing is a common practice in drug development, with pharma and biotech companies relying on CDMOs, CROs, and other partners to manage critical aspects of clinical development, manufacturing, and supply chain operations. This approach allows sponsors to leverage specialised expertise, access advanced technologies, and scale operations efficiently. However, the traditional outsourcing model in drug development, which relies on separate vendors for clinical research, clinical laboratories, manufacturing, and clinical supply functions, often leads to inefficiencies, miscommunication, and delays. These systemic challenges, rooted in coordination gaps, data silos, and fragmented processes, compound the escalating costs of drug development and the complexities of navigating a stringent global regulatory landscape.

To address these challenges, Thermo Fisher Scientific has introduced an integrated outsourcing solution, Accelerator Drug Development, to streamline CDMO, CRO, and clinical supply services into a cohesive, single-vendor experience that fosters seamless collaboration and accelerates progress. This approach has the potential to reduce redundancies and bureaucracy, enhance data flow, and improve alignment across critical functions, enabling faster, more informed decision-making with a single point of accountability.

“Thermo Fisher is transforming drug development and manufacturing processes to support customers as they move critical programmes forward to tackle global health challenges with speed, quality, and efficiency,” said Michael Shafer, Executive Vice President and President, Biopharma Services, Thermo Fisher. “We connect the steps between discovery and delivery, from early testing and analytical support to clinical research design to trial conduct, clinical supply chain management, manufacturing, and commercial scale-up. And we strive to ensure a seamless transition, mitigate risks, and accelerate innovation at every stage.”

Thermo Fisher provides industry-leading pharma services for drug development, clinical trial logistics, and commercial manufacturing through our Patheon brand. We partner with customers in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and life sciences industries as their trusted CDMO to deliver medicine to patients faster. We believe that doing this successfully not only requires science, technology, and world-class expertise, but also requires a strategic partnership bonded by key elements such as trust, communication, and collaboration. We embed these elements into every operation, interaction, and step in the drug development journey.

With around 60 locations worldwide, we are committed to providing integrated, end-to-end solutions across all phases of development. Our pharma services include active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), biologics, advanced therapies, formulations, clinical trial solutions, logistics services, commercial manufacturing, and packaging and labelling. We couple our scientific and technical excellence in these areas with a strategic partnership, to provide customers of all sizes access to a global network of facilities and dedicated experts across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Learn more about our CDMO services

Our broad range of clinical development, clinical trial management, analytical and laboratory services, and patient and advisory services enables our customers to drive innovation and increase drug development productivity, helping them speed safe, new medicines to patients. Utilising patient-centred strategies and AI-enabled solutions to streamline and optimise every phase of clinical development, our capabilities span multiple therapeutic areas and include early development, all phases of clinical development, peri- and post-approval, novel approaches to patient recruitment and investigator sites, and comprehensive laboratory services.

Recognised as a global industry leader in accelerating promising medicines from early development through regulatory approval and market access, we serve pharma, biotech, medical device, and government organisations with custom-tailored solutions, including full-service partnerships and functional service partnerships. As a strategic partner, we apply cutting-edge technologies, therapeutic expertise, and a firm commitment to quality to help customers deliver life-changing therapies.

Learn more about our CRO services

At Thermo Fisher, we understand that developing novel therapies and moving them from discovery to patients is a complex, high-risk process. Every customer has different needs, and every newly discovered drug has a unique pathway to reach the market. With Accelerator Drug Development 360° CDMO and CRO solutions, customers are supported by a dedicated integrated programme management team providing centralised oversight and coordinated management of milestone delivery across the entire drug development journey. We provide customised resourcing strategies to enable a flexible operating model tailored to each customer’s team structure. In summary, our unique approach fosters collaboration and transparency across all phases, helping to drive speed, simplicity, and scalability in drug development.

Contact us to learn more about how Thermo Fisher can support your unique drug development journey.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue over $40 billion. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, increasing productivity in their laboratories, improving patient health through diagnostics or the development and manufacture of life-changing therapies, we are here to support them. Our global team delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services, Patheon and PPD. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.