Strategic Recruitment Partnership for Small Molecule CDMO Expansion

We reduced turnover from 70% to 11%, placing 13 hires and enabling global expansion for a CDMO.

The Challenge

Our client is a small molecule (topical and derma) CDMO, who offer end to end solutions for early to late phase production. They have a small core of permanent employees and a large freelancing bench to fulfil their client’s production needs. With the majority of operations in Durham, North Carolina, the company had exhausted their local networks and sought support from a Life Sciences recruitment partner to bring the volume of freelancers needed. Previous to their relationship with Barrington James, they had used their own personal networks and a couple of search firms. The company had a poor turnover of over 70% due to their representation in the CDMO market.

Our Approach

With a new CEO and recruitment partner, we worked together to hire strategically for them. We have made 13 hires In 18 months, in that time and we’ve enabled them to decrease turnover to 11%. We have completed six retained searches; identifying key leaders in sales, EHS, Quality, Technical Operations, a BD Director, and a VP of marketing. Over the course of the partnership, we have made further placements with a mixture of contract and permanent hires based on the needs of the business. These included Quality, technology, finance and scientific.

We have been transparent with the client throughout each process and had such a good relationship that we were able to influence the hiring strategy. We met with a lot of our candidates face to face because we had conviction in our knowledge of who would be the right fit for the right hiring managers. Over the course of our recruitment partnership, we have held a bi-weekly call with CEO and HR director. We have collaborated really strongly with the HR director and her team.

As the company obtained investment from a Private Equity company and became able to sell into a global market, we rearranged our MSA to provide for the new UK operations. Complete rebrand of what the company represents, what they have on offer and what opportunities they had. Their global expansion was made possible by us identifying strategic senior hires that freed up the CEO to drive the vision to expand.

Results

We quickly became the only external recruitment partner to work with the client because we delivered to them quickly and efficiently. When we placed contractors, we had a 100% completion on their contracts. 

The client has recently had investment from a private equity company, which has now enabled them to offer their services into a global market. 

A direct quote from our client: “Since partnering with Barrington James, we’ve been able to decrease turnover from over 70% to less than 11%, boost employee overall happiness and satisfaction ratings, and build out both strong leadership teams as well as support staff. It has been a great partnership and look forward to working with the team again this year.”