The education programs at DCAT Week 2026, held March 23–26, in New York, featured senior executives and thought leaders providing perspectives on key issues impactful to the business of bio/pharma development and manufacturing and the pharma customer–supplier relationship.

By Patricia Van Arnum, Editorial Director, DCAT, pvanarnum@dcat.org

DCAT Week education programs at a glance
Always facing the risk and rewards of drug development and with greater product complexity, the industry has more layers to add to the mix: geopolitical uncertainty, a still very fluid tariff/trade situation, US policy resets, including drug pricing reforms, and evolving competitive forces globally. Basic questions arise: how will the industry perform amid these dynamics, and how can bio/pharma companies and their suppliers best adapt?

These all-important questions were addressed at the education programs at DCAT Week, held March 23–26, 2026, and the flagship event of the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT) and the premier event for the global bio/pharmaceutical business ecosystem. Detailed editorial coverage of these programs will follow in upcoming issues of DCAT Value Chain Insights.

Market outlook: how is the industry performing? 
How is the industry performing, and what can be expected in 2026 and beyond? The Pharma Industry Outlook program provided valuable insights from leading experts at IQVIA, a business intelligence firm serving the bio/pharmaceutical industry. Graham Lewis, Vice President, Global Pharma Strategy, IQVIA, provided the latest market data and analysis on overall industry performance, including growth prospects for innovator drugs and generics/biosimilars and in the major developed and emerging markets. In addition, Murray Aitken, Senior Vice President, IQVIA and Executive Director, The IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, provided further insight on key policy issues in the US impactful to the industry, including drug pricing reforms and trade/tariff policy.

Pharma manufacturing: global capacity shifts or not?
One of the results of evolving US tariff/trade policy, which started with the new Administration in 2025 and continues in 2026 has been a wave of announced manufacturing expansions in the US—greenfield projects and expansions of existing facilities for manufacturing, research and development, and other capital projects. Many of the large bio/pharmaceutical companies have announced multi-year and multi-billion capital projects in the US, but a key question arises: are geographic capacity shifts really in the making? If so, what are the implications for bio/pharmaceutical companies and CDMOs and the industry at large?

The DCAT Week education program, Manufacturing Investments, Capacity & Financial Outlook: A Pharma & CDMO View, examined these issues. Sean P. McKee, Partner, PharmaBioSource, a global life sciences consulting firm focused on pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing facility and business transactions, provided an analysis of recent US-based manufacturing investments and trends comparative to historical levels. Important for CDMOs/CMOs is whether these investments may be influencing insourced/outsourcing decisions by bio/pharmaceutical companies. To gain a perspective on that issue, Daniel Cohen, Managing Director & Global Head of Pharma Services, Morgan Stanley, provided a financial overview of the CDMO/CMO sector: overall performance, outlook, and key trends influencing sector performance and valuations.

Bio/pharma companies and suppliers: continuous adaption
Evolving US tariff/trade policy is but one of the many variables that bio/pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers are facing. Global supply chains are always subject to geopolitical uncertainties, fluctuating economic conditions, and changes in trade and government policies, but the pace of that change has accelerated. Add to that the base challenge of increased product and supply chain complexity in the industry, and the need for bio/pharma companies and their suppliers to adapt is ever more important for supply assurance.

An executive panel at the DCAT Week program, Future-Proofing the Pharma Customer–Supplier Relationship, provided insights from senior bio/pharma executives on lessons learned, best practices, and innovative ways on how they are collaborating to enhance supply-chain visibility and resilience, mitigate risk, and optimize supply planning now and for what may lie ahead. Participating in the panel were: Xavier De Ceuninck, Category Management Lead, PGS Global Procurement, Source to Pay, Pfizer; Ajay Nanda, Vice President Global Key Accounts, BioPharma Systems, BD; Troy Mathews, Executive Director, Direct Materials Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management & Site Operations, Global Procurement – Global Product Development & Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb; and Sara Henneman, Vice President and General Manager, Cell Culture and Cell Therapy, Thermo Fisher Scientific. The panel was moderated by Michael Piccarreta, Partner, Healthcare & Life Sciences Practice, Kearney.

AI and digitalization in supply management
Artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of digitalization hold great potential in transforming business functions, but where do they really stand in supply management? An executive panel at DCAT Week shared their perspectives on how AI may transform how pharma companies and their suppliers do business. The DCAT Week program, AI & Digitalization: The State of the State in Sourcing, Procurement & Supply Management, provided practical assessments from bio/pharma company senior executives and leading industry experts of the path AI and other forms of digital transformation are taking and their feasibility for adoption.

Participating in the program were: Christina da Cunha, Head of CMO Operations and Business Transformation, External Manufacturing & Supply, Sanofi; Bala Sreenivasan, Senior Vice President, Global Supply and Value Chain Management, Merck & Co. Inc; and Corwin Hee, Senior Director, Analyst, Gartner. The panel discussion was moderated by Janel Firestein, Partner and Life Sciences Practice Leader, Clarkston Consulting.

Pharma companies and suppliers: opportunities for value creation
In a highly competitive environment, providing value beyond core deliverables of product and price is crucial for CDMOs and materials suppliers to maintain and gain an edge with their bio/pharma customers, but do bio/pharma companies and their suppliers agree on what constitutes value-added enhancements? What is important?  Is it technical proficiency? Operational efficiency? Supply-chain transparency?

An executive panel at the DCAT Week program, Creating Value Beyond Product and Price in the Pharma Customer–Supplier Relationship provided a “buy-and-sell-side view” of value creation. Participating in the panel were Vince Ricevuto, Vice President, Research & Development, Facilities, Capital, and Logistics Procurement, GSK; Michael Hoffman, Vice President, Process Engineering and API Clinical Supplies, AbbVie; Paul Smaltz, Senior Vice President, Pharmaceutical Solutions, BASF; and Jason Bertola, Executive Director, Commercial Development, Advanced Synthesis, Lonza. The panel was moderated by Jim Miller, Content Advisor, DCAT.

The panel discussion provided further insight from a new study, Creating Value Beyond Product and Price in the Pharma Customer–-Supplier Relationship, released at DCAT Week by DCAT and its Research & Benchmarking Committee. The study provides a “buy-and-sell-side view” on what constitutes value creation and how value creation is measured and evaluated in the bio/pharma customer– supplier relationship. The report is exclusive and complimentary to DCAT Member Companies and is available for download here.