Medtech Snapshot: COO Scott Addonizio - Selecting the Right Contract Manufacturers

​Medtech Snapshot Podcast - featuring Scott J Addonizio, COO of BrosMed Medical, Scott walks us through his process for finding, selecting and engaging the right contract manufacturer (CM) for catheter-based therapeutics.

Transcript:

​Travis: 
Welcome back to another Med Tech Snapshot, the one-question, one-answer Medical Device podcast. 

With me today is a good buddy of mine, Scott. And Scott's going to educate us on some of the finer things as it relates to being an OEM and selecting a contract manufacturer, as well as sitting in the contract manufacturer's seat and learning what they look for in an OEM. So stay tuned. 

What approach have you taken in the past to find the best contract manufacturing partners? 

Scott:
Yeah, Thanks, Travis. Great question. I think first and foremost because of the field we're in, you have to focus on the quality—so the quality standards of that company, like, are they ISO certified?—just the basics, really, in the intro. 

Then I've learned that really with volume and flexibility—consider like, what is their production? What are our production needs, and what are their capabilities? Again, and, then there's a lead time. A lot of times lead time becomes the killer. So you want to go and understand with their capabilities, what is their traditional lead time on such a development, and just project overall timelines? 

And I would say, also, very important is their capabilities. You know, what is their wheelhouse? What are they? Are they really truly a designer of all arts? Are they specific to certain technologies and capital expertise? And those are really the big 4 of what I would literally look at too. 

And then you always can go by reputation. A lot of our industry has some really good customers and clients. And so there's a lot to be said about reputation. 

And again, I think one of the biggest ones is, is, is cost management and then material sourcing. What I found historically, in the last year or two, material sourcing has been a been a nightmare in some instances. 

Everything from the Teflon shortage, or lack of, for companies to just knowing that they have multiple suppliers that have been validated is very key for that whole OEM experience. 

And then getting the pilot. To be able to have a pilot running some samples provided, all these dial into really nicely what is required when searching for that key partner, I believe so. 

Travis: 
What about location? I know most of the time we're not going to pick a contract manufacturing partner purely just on location. However, in the last couple years, logistics seems to be a little bit of a challenge. So, talk with me real quick about how you look at location as part of the qualifying process for a new partner. 

Scott: 
Yeah, it's a good point. Location is critical. And I think location is like these one of these double-edged swords like—and you can speak to it—where you want the location to be close to your facility and vicinity so you can save—and you know, shipment costs, be flexible with delivery times... 

But it's unspoken when we're working with these highly technical devices. A lot of those resources and design and OEM locations aren't local, they're overseas. 

And so you really have to weigh which attribute is most important. I think for a lot of times we seek experience and expertise that are not next door to us. I think there's more opportunities. 

But like for right now, I'd say when I'm dealing with my OEMs and even ODM projects, I'd say 50% of the time it's someone close doing a specific task. 

But a lot of times it's also someone international where I'm contacting everywhere from Brazil to China to get that part of that, that device or that design completed. 

There's also the geopolitical situation, where you never know what's going to come or what might tariffs might be put in place or sanctions might be put in place. So you really have to hedge your risk and identify really risk adverse and what, what is the attributes you need. And I think you'll find it every even though you want it in your backyard, often it's not.