The Pharma Industry Market transition in Portugal
In the past years, the manufacturing industry in Portugal transitioned from an out-dated traditional business to a context where the industry is now largely dependent on technology. This allowed the existence and development of new sectors of activity with a significant growth. Some of them are industries related to telecommunications and information technology, but also manufacturing of automotive components, electronics, energy and the pharmaceutical industry.
The more prominent Portuguese-owned pharmaceutical industries appeared in the last 70 to 50 years, starting as small and medium-sized family companies that grew over the last decades. Portugal’s pharmaceutical industry landscape is dominated by multinationals, most of which import finished products since those companies do not have local manufacturing sites. However, in the last few years, the deficit between imports and exports of pharmaceutical products has been decreasing.
Since 2012, we can observe that the increase in exportation is consistent with the increase in the pharmaceutical products manufacturing. This is being done mainly through organic growth of already existent companies, considering that the number of pharma companies has not increased. The observed evolution is being driven mainly by investments on the capacity expansion of existent facilities, portfolio augmentation and incorporation of new technologies. Consequently, the Pharmaceutical Industry is currently under some pressure to comply with the challenges ahead in terms of growth.
Currently, we can observe that there is a shift in the way the Pharma Industry is behaving towards outsourcing of services. Pharmaceutical companies are resorting more and more to the outsourcing of high-skilled profiles to suppress the high demand to implement their expansion projects. These specialized profiles range from Qualification and Validation Engineers, Process Engineers, Quality Assurance and Quality Control profiles. They are demanded mostly by the Manufacturing companies, but also profiles with high expertise and knowledge in Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Trials fields, demanded by Pharmaceutical Multinational companies, with established business in Portugal.
This being is easy to conclude that the outsourcing services are valuable, not only to the industry but also for Engineers and Pharmacist profiles. Regarding the Pharmaceutical companies, they are able to get high-skilled resources to implement their growth plans and adjust it, resource-wise, whenever needed. On the other hand, consultants have the opportunity to grow within the industry, taking part in challenging new projects while coping with demanding deadlines and high levels of quality.
