Innovate or Die

This morning, I attended a breakfast seminar on Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMOs) hosted by the Colorado Bioscience Association. This is an area of the bioscience industry about which I knew very little, filled with cryptic acronyms like API, GLP, and cGMP.  Sadly, no one defined the terms before the presentation but I was able to get a sponsor to translate afterwards (these vary somewhat but Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient, Good Laboratory Practice, current Good Manufacturing Practice). Note to experts in any field: Please define your terms.

One terrific question was posed to the panel of experts, all representatives of local companies. How do you, or can you, compete with overseas lower cost companies? Best answer "Innovate or Die." Surprisingly this came from the largest CMO in the group – Roche.