Visibility, Integration, and Opportunity with CPOs: A Pharmapack Interview

At Pharmapack 2025 in Paris the informative content tracks this year will feature a Contract Packaging track. A critically important topic for those working in the field, which speaker Alexander Schäfer from Sharp Services discusses in the following interview. 

Alexander Schäfer joined Sharp’s European Business Development team in 2014 as Business Development Manager. Before joining the Sharp team, Alexander worked for 20 years for several CMO’s/CDMO’s such as Catalent and NextPharma in different Sales & Marketing related roles covering clinical and commercial manufacturing and packaging services. Having advised Sharp clients on packaging solutions for over nine years, he has particular expertise in the many specific requirements for packaging of injectable devices – including vials, syringes, pens, auto-injectors and pre-filled syringes. Prior to his Sales & Marketing career he worked for a major personal care player as Purchasing Manager and as Product Manager.

1.    What are you most looking forward to from the Contract Packaging track at Pharmapack this year? 

This new track will give a bit more visibility to CPOs, the services they are offering and the additional value they can add to the supply chain of pharma and biotech customers. 

There seem to be a couple of important challenges within the industry like the growing need for small scale manufacturing solutions and the complexity coming with late-stage customisation where CPO’s can be key contributors for tackling these challenges. 

2.    Why is it important that CPOs and CDMOs are more aligned in the future? 

CPOs and CDMOs are in certain markets direct competitors (e.g. EU) while they are offering more complementary services in other markets (e.g. USA). 

CPOs and CDMOs need to be more aligned as the industry needs to work together on some of our shared challenges, particularly around sustainability and sustainable materials. More supply chain collaboration will result in better outcomes for pharma when it comes to some of these challenges. Given the scale too of the GLP-1 biologics market, we will need to work together to deliver on the enormous projected growth.

In any case there is definitely some room for collaborations creating win-win situations for all parties involved. 

3.    Can you please outline the intricacies of the role of CPOs in the pharmaceutical supply chain, getting a product from clinic to market? 

In the best case a fully integrated CPO with clinical and commercial packaging etc. capabilities can help clients to seemingly bring their product from the clinical into the commercial stage. In reality this is only relevant to a small number of programmes that are successfully passing their Phase III clinical trials. This is also a reason why we see different players in the clinical and commercial packaging space. Another challenge is that even if you have the capabilities to support both product phases, there is always a big risk that e.g. smaller biotechs etc. are out licensing their products to bigger pharma, which might result in a completely different supply chain. 

4.    What considerations are important in this journey when it comes to manufacturing, labelling, packaging, and end of life? 

You need to consider a combination of different important aspects such as (packaging) design, technology, capabilities, capacities, service offering, costs, timelines, location etc. 

Stakeholders being involved in the clinical packaging phase do not always have a commercial (packaging) strategy on their radar but there would be several aspects to consider, for example, designing for circularity, here balanced with user-centric design.  We have to solve for end-use convenience whilst considering the environmental impact of the manufacturing process and materials used. 

5.    How do you see digitalisation and other technological advancements changing this area in the future? 

Technology is advancing and it will play a more important role in the industry whether it is digitalisation, AI, or robotics technology. Packaging automation and robotics are definitely becoming more mainstream as companies look for process efficiency through robotics and AI. Digitalisation is changing how we interact with all services in our lives by increasing the demand for real-time information. It is the same with CPO and CDMO services, there is an expectation to have immediate visibility of your drug programmes.

6.    How will technology, regulation, and innovation shape the strategic vision of CPOs and CDMOs for the future? 

It is part of a CPO’s job to ‘horizon-scan’ on behalf of their clients. It is one of the advantages of working with an outsourcing partner who is expert in their particular area and will stay alert to changes in regulation and technology that might change the industry. They build this into their strategic planning so they are ready for change, mitigating risks and spotting opportunities that new innovation brings. It’s in our DNA.

See what to expect from the whole track on the conference agenda here.