Pharmaceutical companies around the world need to undergo a series of process to produce medicines. All the steps involved in the process are important and one major is involvement of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Most Biopharma companies rely on outsourced suppliers for the ingredient and its intermediates, and they supply it with an assurance of quality.
As APIs make an important component of modern medicine, supplying and acquiring constitute two important parts of it. Pharmaceutical companies therefore need to be careful in selecting right API manufacturing partners and suppliers. This article is dedicated to discuss the few aspects of a good API supplier.

Know your supplier: As a rule of thumb knowing the background of your supplier is a prerequisite to get assured quality products. A background search of the supplier will help you discover the many facts about his business practices, financial strengths/weaknesses, market reputation, client base, existing clients, licensing and many more.
Learn about their clients: Finding out who their clients are will reveal a lot about their business. A supplier catering to the leading brands obviously is a one of repute. Most companies nowadays are candid about their client base and often showcase client feedback on their websites. While discussing about future business relations do not hesitate to ask for a few references and checking up with them before signing on those dotted lines. It is important because reputation of your business is related to that.

Guarantee about products: Is your supplier ready to vouch for the ingredients supplied by them? Are they ready to take responsibility about product quality? Decide about the terms and conditions regarding quality assurance and assuming responsibility if a certain ingredient fail to meet quality standard. It is after all a matter of life and death for patients.
Discuss the financial: Financials are one of the most important determining factors while selecting a supplier, especially, if you are looking for a long term business relation. However, costs shouldn’t remain the only selection criteria. Researching the market will help you find a supplier/manufacturer of API offering quality at reasonable cost. Get quotes for a few suppliers and then decide.
Order and supply: While ordering you would also need to keep in mind if they are timely with supply. You would need to take into account shipping and other fees, such as – custom, excise, sales and other taxes and insurance costs. All these would feature into your cost of production. While deciding about supplier cost you may all these aspects into consideration.
Quality: Apart from cost the other important factor that would influence your decision is quality. Aside from being competitive the supplier must also assure quality of his supply. Check out if the manufacturer had any investigations or lawsuits filed against them and if so what the verdicts of those were. Finding out also about its licensing status quo and registration details will help in decision making.
API / Bulk drug manufacturer in India like Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited can be ideal partners to deal with as they have almost all accreditations required for drug exports like USFDA, EDQM – European Directorate of Quality Medicine, Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco (AIFA), TGA – Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia, WHO and others. Spread over more than 1,05,000 sq. ft. area, Cadila Pharmaceuticals’ R & D facilities, recognized by the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, are manned by more than 300 scientists. A centralized Quality Control & Analytical Research Laboratory has been set up to meet the domestic and international quality standards.
Since active pharmaceutical ingredients are important in modern medication one needs to be absolutely sure before selecting a manufacturer/supplier. Hope the points mentioned above will give you a clear direction about how to proceed with selection.