The Medicine Maker: Capabilities for a Changing Landscape

Speed, flexibility, and resilience have become increasingly important in biopharmaceutical development. As companies work with more complex modalities, tighter timelines, and changing external pressures, the capabilities required to move programs forward are also evolving

For Biopharma Vital Signs, we asked industry leaders for their views on the state of biotech and biopharma today – including the trends shaping development, the pressure points slowing progress, and the practical challenges companies are navigating as programs advance.

What capabilities are becoming most important for companies that want to make drug development faster, more flexible, and more resilient?

Gavin Murdoch, SVP of Commercial Strategy, Abzena

As drug developers become increasingly specialized in complex technologies, they need partners who can match that sophistication while simplifying the program’s path forward. That often means bridging traditionally isolated scientific disciplines into a more continuous, efficient path from discovery to patients, with unified oversight, faster decisions, better data, and seamless scalability.

Achieving this requires dismantling the organizational silos that slow progress and replacing them with leadership that can coordinate the full development continuum. Supply chain security is an equally important driver. A US-based drug substance capability, for example, can provide a hedge against geopolitical instability, tariff exposure, and trade disruption. These risks are no longer theoretical, so resilience must be built into the supply chain architecture from the start, not retrofitted after a disruption occurs.

The organizations best positioned for faster, more flexible development will be those that can reduce handoff risk, miscommunication, and delays while maintaining accountability across the development journey.

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