From a passed audit to a signed program
You sell development or manufacturing services, clinical research services or laboratory tools to biotech and pharma companies, often to a program that has just raised money or reached a new trial phase. The companies that fit are a finite list, and most of your pipeline sits between a good scientific conversation and a supplier qualification that nobody started.
Who this page is for
- CDMOs selling development and manufacturing services to biotech companies
- CROs selling clinical research services to programs entering a new trial phase
- Laboratory tools companies selling to biotech and pharma teams
Usual starting point: Demand
How do you increase sales for a CDMO, CRO or lab tools company?
Follow dated events at a short list of biotech accounts at the right stage, such as a financing round or a new trial registration, and reach the head of CMC and quality early. Quality assurance will audit you and the contract takes months, so bring quality and procurement in before the program lead asks for a quote.
What do the numbers say about Pharma & Life Sciences?
Each figure links to the page it comes from, so you can check it before you repeat it.
| What the evidence says | Source |
|---|---|
| The EU GMP Guide requires a written contract between the contract giver and the contract acceptor that sets out each party's duties. | EU GMP Guide, Chapter 7 (2012) |
| Practitioner guidance advises starting tech transfer 12 to 18 months before the first GMP batch is needed. | Drug Discovery News (2026) |
| Swiss biotech companies raised more than CHF 2.5 billion in 2024, including a record CHF 833 million raised by private companies. | EY Switzerland, Swiss Biotech Report 2025 (5 May 2025) |
| Chemistry, pharma and life sciences made up just over 52% of Swiss exports in 2024, CHF 149.08 billion. | scienceindustries (30 January 2025) |
Why does the usual approach stall in Pharma & Life Sciences?
A scientist or program lead can want your service, but outsourcing a regulated activity requires more than their agreement. The EU GMP Guide requires a written contract that sets out each party's duties, makes the contract giver responsible for assessing the competence of the contract acceptor, and expects the contract to permit audits of the outsourced work. In practice, quality assurance has to audit you, procurement and legal have to agree a contract and a quality agreement, and practitioner guidance advises starting tech transfer 12 to 18 months before the first GMP batch is needed. When those steps start late, the program goes to whoever is already qualified.
Volume marketing reaches researchers who are curious and rarely the program lead with a budget and a date. Your accounts are the companies at the right stage in the right modality, and the moment they need you shows in public events such as a financing or a trial registration, so ads optimised on clicks spend most of the budget outside that list.
If you are a large company with your own account teams and medical marketing, this page does not describe you, because those programs are run in-house. If your list is very small and a year can pass between first contact and a contract, Torke works with you on a subscription rather than per lead, and the Diagnostic says plainly whether the work is worth starting.
Where does pipeline break in Pharma & Life Sciences?
We look at five stages in the Diagnostic, because each fails for a different reason. The rows show the failure we look for first at each stage and what changes once Torke fixes it, in the order a deal meets them.
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Discovery
Where it breaks
Curious researchers find the content, while the program lead with a budget and a date never sees material written for their stage
What changes once it is fixed
Torke's Visibility practice builds the pages program leads and quality read before sales, and checks that AI assistants describe the service correctly
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Timing
Where it breaks
A biotech that closed a round or registered a trial picks suppliers in the following months, and a vendor who hears late meets a set shortlist
What changes once it is fixed
Account signals bring financings, trial registrations and hiring at your target accounts each morning, from newsrooms, job boards and regulator feeds
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Evaluation
Where it breaks
Quality assurance audits you before you can be used, and a claim your own quality team would not sign reads as a warning to auditors
What changes once it is fixed
Campaigns on approved claims checks every capacity, timeline and regulatory statement against the facts your quality team approved before export
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Qualification
Where it breaks
Requests from students, academics and companies years from the clinic take the same sales time as a funded program with a date
What changes once it is fixed
Inbound response qualifies every request and routes it by segment and language, and can run in draft mode so your team checks each answer
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Handover
Where it breaks
A program lead's interest sits in the CRM as pipeline while no audit date exists, and the decision drifts toward a supplier already qualified
What changes once it is fixed
Torke's Revenue operations practice sets lifecycle stages so a program waiting for its audit is counted apart from one with a quality agreement
Who is in the buying group?
One person rarely decides alone, so a lead from the wrong role moves nothing. These are the roles we map at every account on your list.
Who signs
The head of CMC, development or clinical operations, with the CEO or CFO approving larger contracts at a smaller biotech.
Who evaluates
The program lead and the scientists who will use the work, the CMC or clinical operations team, and quality assurance, which audits you before you can be used.
Who can block
Quality assurance when the audit finds gaps, procurement and legal through the contract and the quality agreement, and the investors who decide when the next phase is funded.
Which signals open an account in Pharma & Life Sciences?
Each signal is a dated, public event a sceptical buyer could check in thirty seconds. Market-wide news can change an account's conditions, and we never write it up as something that company did.
| Signal | What it changes inside the account |
|---|---|
| A financing round with a stated use of funds | Money for a defined program now exists, and suppliers for its next stage will be chosen in the following months |
| A new trial appears in the EU Clinical Trials Information System | The program has a dated plan, and the services that phase needs are being bought |
| Trial results or a regulatory designation are announced | The next phase needs more material and more sites, and often suppliers the company has not used before |
| Hiring for a head of CMC, quality or clinical operations | Someone has been given the job of building the supplier base and is choosing it now |
| A licensing deal or partnership is announced | A partner's timeline now applies, and capacity has to be secured to meet it |
What does a qualified lead look like here?
The head of CMC at a biotech company on your agreed list replies that their lead program starts a phase 2 trial next year, that they need a second manufacturing site qualified before then, and asks when your team could host an audit. The basis for contacting them in their country is recorded, and the account is not an open opportunity in your CRM. That reply, with the financing announcement it answered, is a qualified lead.
A lead counts only when all five facts are recorded, and you have five business days to reject it with a reason. The Torke Service page explains each fact.
- Fact one
- A named person in the buying group
- Fact two
- At an account you agreed to in writing
- Fact three
- A need or timing in their own words
- Fact four
- A lawful basis for contact
- Fact five
- Not already open in your CRM
Where should you start?
Demand is the practice the Diagnostic most often points to for life sciences service and tools companies, because qualifying a supplier follows a dated event at the account, such as a financing or a trial registration.
Every engagement opens with the Diagnostic, two to three weeks that end on one of four decisions: stop, fix one barrier, run one practice, or expand later.
Usual first step for Pharma & Life Sciences
The practice the Diagnostic most often points to here, run month by month once it does.
Get in touchHow do Torke Service and Torke Engine help?
The same engines run in both, so you can begin with one and move to the other without starting over.
Torke Service, we run it
For example, a cell therapy CDMO whose sales team talks mostly to scientists learns in the Diagnostic that its won deals started with a head of CMC soon after a financing. Torke runs Demand against the biotech companies on the agreed list, watches financings and trial registrations, and passes each lead with its evidence, while your team keeps the audit, the technical work and the contract.
How Torke Service worksTorke Engine, your team runs it
Account signals and first-touch outreach matter most here. A financing or a trial registration gives a precise reason to write, and the first email has to rest on what the company itself published, because its readers check claims for a living.
For example, a marketer asks the assistant to find the biotech companies on the list that announced a financing or registered a new trial this month and to draft a first email to each head of CMC. The assistant returns the ranked accounts with each dated event and its source, and drafts where every sentence traces to that event and anything inferred about their needs is written as a question, for a person to review and send.
How Torke Engine worksWhat can you expect?
You can stop after any stage and keep what it produced.
An honest answer on fit
The Diagnostic can end on stop, and in an industry with long regulated cycles that is a real outcome, stated in writing with the reason.
First leads with their evidence
Each lead names a person in the buying group, their need or timing in their own words and the lawful basis for contact, and you have five business days to reject it.
Small results called small
The monthly read reports accounts moved into conversations and coverage of your list, and results too small to judge are reported as too small to judge rather than rounded up.
What do teams in Pharma & Life Sciences ask about Torke?
Each answer stands on its own, so you can forward one to a colleague, and an assistant asked the same question can quote it as it is.
Where should a CDMO or CRO start with Torke?
A CDMO, CRO or lab tools company starts with Torke's Diagnostic, which looks at the programs that went to another supplier and at whether the account list follows each company's stage and modality. It most often points to the Demand practice, because a biotech qualifies a supplier after a dated event such as a financing or a trial registration, and the work is to be in the conversation with quality and the program lead when it happens.
Why does a biotech take months to sign with a new CDMO?
Under the EU GMP Guide, outsourcing a regulated activity needs a written contract and lets the biotech audit the work, so its quality assurance audits the CDMO while procurement and legal agree a contract and a quality agreement. Practitioner guidance advises starting tech transfer 12 to 18 months before the first GMP batch is needed, which is why Torke's Demand practice brings quality and procurement at the account into the conversation early.
How can a CDMO reach biotech companies right after a financing round?
Torke Engine's Account signals module brings dated public events at a CDMO's target accounts each morning, such as a financing or a new trial in the EU Clinical Trials Information System, ranked with the opening line the strongest event justifies. First-touch outreach then drafts an email to the head of CMC where every sentence traces to that event, and a person reviews and sends it.
How long is the sales cycle for life sciences companies selling to biotech companies?
For outsourced manufacturing it often runs past a year, because the EU GMP Guide requires a written contract and lets the biotech audit the supplier, and practitioner guidance advises starting tech transfer 12 to 18 months before the first GMP batch is needed.
How can a CDMO generate leads without wasting ad budget?
Work a named list of biotech companies at the right stage and modality, watch financings and trial registrations at those accounts, and write to the program lead with the dated event as the reason.
Bring us the problem, and we bring the solution to it
Tell us what your team sells, who buys it and where deals stop moving. You'll get a written reply saying which way of working fits you, or whether a Diagnostic makes sense, and if neither does, the reason.