Recent Engagements Demonstrate the Opportunity

Featured Professionals: Cheairs Porter, Rob Crampton

Biopharma spending and activity are picking up thanks to increasing specialty therapeutics demand, greater funding, and more drug approvals. These healthier fundamentals are driving growth across the outsourced pharma services sector, from clinical development to commercialization.

Below, our Healthcare & Life Sciences Group further explores outsourced pharma services’ renewed momentum and several engagements that illustrate the opportunity, including The Deerfield Group, SSI Strategy, Mercalis, and AnovoRx.

An Improving End Market

Biotech funding has rebounded meaningfully following a multi-year slowdown. In fact, global biotech venture funding reached approximately $38B in 2025, up around 28% year-over-year and approaching 2021’s peak of approximately $42B.¹ Funding today is also more selective than during the 2021 to 2022 boom, with capital concentrating in later-stage, clinically de-risked opportunities rather than pre-clinical and platform assets that characterized the prior cycle.

This is good news for outsourced providers: “Higher-quality, better-funded science is more likely to convert into completed trials, regulatory filings, launches, and more outsourcing spending,” says Cheairs Porter, a managing director.

Emerging biopharma companies (EBPs) continue to be an especially powerful driver of clinical innovation. EBPs now sponsor roughly two-thirds of global clinical trial starts, a share that has grown significantly in the past decade as large pharma R&D has become more externalized.² “This group has a particularly strong need for outsourced support to hit clinical and commercial milestones given leaner internal infrastructure and less regulatory and commercial experience,” says Rob Crampton, a director.

Large pharma companies, meanwhile, are focused on replenishing their pipelines given the looming patent cliff many face, which has driven M&A appetite for EBPs. “The industry is focused on addressing potential revenue impacts due to loss of exclusivity over the next several years,” adds Crampton. “That’s driving ongoing clinical investment and more dealmaking to replenish pipelines and access differentiated science.”

The result is heightened investor interest in the sector and stronger M&A momentum. “Multiple scaled transactions in the past year are catalyzing a new wave of activity, and we expect an expanding pipeline of businesses to come to market through 2027,” says Porter.

Five Traits That Matter Today

Amid this recovery, today’s discerning investors are prioritizing five specific company traits:

Strong Organic Growth: Proven, sustainable organic growth continues to be the clearest signal of a company’s overall success and the most correlated driver of valuation multiple across a broad range of pharma services transactions.

Diversification of Growth: Winning platforms have diverse clients spanning large pharma, small and mid-sized pharma, and emerging biotech combined with evidence of broad growth across that mix as opposed to growth concentrated with a select set of clients.

Scientific or Therapeutic Area Expertise: Leaders in the space increasingly combine deep, credible scientific depth with specialization in complex, high-growth therapeutic areas like oncology, rare disease, cell and gene therapy, CNS, and cardiometabolic/obesity. This depth creates higher switching costs and a greater competitive advantage.

Advanced Technology: The most sought-after providers are investing in technology to drive internal workflow efficiencies and better client outcomes. Efficiencies also help fund continued investment in client-facing tools, while improved client outcomes reinforce a platform’s right to win.

Unique AI Strategies: With AI adoption maturing across biopharma, providers’ AI strategies are becoming more important. Those combining scientific experience, proprietary data and analytics, and workflow expertise with AI tools can often produce better results for clients while cutting costs internally.

Harris Williams Engagement Spotlight

A sample of recent engagements exemplify these core attributes:

The Deerfield Group is a fully integrated marketing, communications, and media partner providing innovative solutions for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, health tech, and consumer health companies. With services across each phase of drug development, Deerfield supports its customers pre-launch through brand maintenance while providing brand strategy throughout a drug’s commercial life.

“Rising pharma revenues and drug launches will require more spending on marketing, media, and communications,” says Porter. “Investors will keep seeking partners like Deerfield that can provide end-to-end commercial support, ranging from brand strategy and creative development through digital media execution.”

SSI Strategy delivers full-service teams that combine scientific expertise with business rigor to help biotechs address medical, regulatory, and organizational challenges. Through its comprehensive solutions and flexible resources, SSI has become a best-in-class drug development advisory with the infrastructure and experience to generate ongoing growth.

“As a strategic partner for its clients, SSI is tapped directly into organizations to drive important milestones while reducing risk,” says Crampton. “Its ability to build and scale many key scientific functions is unique in the space and highly attractive to both clients and investors.”

Mercalis provides integrated patient support services and commercialization capabilities for the entire drug lifecycle, from clinical development to loss of exclusivity. The company’s key advantages include a broad, tech-enabled service suite, deep therapeutic expertise, and strong scalability, positioning it as an end-to-end partner for its clients.

Mercalis and similar businesses add value to manufacturers by building integrated patient support hubs, creating excusive pharmacy networks, establishing direct-to-patient models, and investing in data analytics. “They also offer many appealing investment traits like strong, lasting relationships with both patients and manufacturers, predictable, recurring revenue through subscription fee models, and highly scalable centralized infrastructure,” adds Porter.

AnovoRx offers exclusive distribution and patient support for orphan and ultra-orphan pharmaceuticals. The business delivers significant value by streamlining the value chain for manufacturers, improving patient outcomes, and generating consistent revenue from reimbursed product sales as well as recurring data and support service fees.

“The shift toward specialty pharmaceuticals and growing complexity in coverage and reimbursement are driving growth for hub services companies like AnovoRx,” notes Porter. “Demand will remain strong for platforms that can bolster patient engagement through advanced technology as well as data and consulting expertise.”

A New Wave of Activity

Improving outsourced pharma services performance will continue to unlock greater deal momentum throughout the sector, something Harris Williams is already seeing across a wide range of engagements.

“We’re excited about the energy and momentum we’re seeing in pharma, and by extension, pharma services,” says Porter. “In the months to come, many innovative businesses will be entering the M&A market.”

To further discuss investment opportunities within outsourced pharma services, please contact our senior professionals.

1. BioPharma Dive

2. BioPharma Dive