Key takeaways:
Big pharma doesn't invent most of what it sells anymore. Across the top 20 companies, about 65% of newly approved drugs came from somewhere else, and only 28% from their own labs. If you're a biotech, you're selling to someone who needs you.
Getting a meeting isn't the hard part. Proving you fit is.
The research that works is gap research: finding the specific hole in their portfolio that you can fill.
Start with something that just changed, like a patent expiry, a failed trial, a new therapeutic area head. Let that pick your target list.
Let software gather the facts. Keep the thinking for yourself.
Three days of research, one bad email
A biotech CBO sits down on Monday to prepare for first contact with a big pharma account.
She starts on euClinicalTrials.eu checking what they already have in her indication. Then the last two earnings calls, because she needs to know which therapeutic areas survived the latest round of cuts. Then their partnering page, which hasn't been updated in about eighteen months. Then a deal database, to see what they've licensed in recently and at what stage. Then LinkedIn, because R&D was restructured in the spring and she has no idea who runs immunology now.
By Wednesday the email goes out. It opens with "I noticed your commitment to innovation in oncology."
She knows it's a bad email. But doing that work properly across twenty accounts would take a month of her time, and her company has fourteen months of runway.
Everyone selling into pharma has some version of this problem. When you're a biotech, though, it's a different problem than it is for a software vendor, and the fix looks different too.
What "selling to pharma" means when you're a biotech
It usually means one of two things.
You're looking for a partner. You have an asset, a platform, or a technology, and you want a pharma company to develop or commercialize it. You'll be talking to business development and licensing, and to the search and evaluation team that screens opportunities for them. The deal is money up front, milestones, and royalties.
You're selling them something. You're a CRO, a CDMO, an analytics platform, an assay provider, a data company. Pharma is your customer. You'll be talking to a program lead, a head of technical operations, or R&D procurement, and the deal is a contract.
Two very different deals. But the first question from the other side of the table is the same either way: does this fit what we're trying to do right now? If your email doesn't answer that, it doesn't get a reply.
Why the research eats so much time
Because nothing you need lives in one place, and half of it goes stale fast.
To know whether a pharma company is worth pursuing, you need to know what's already in their pipeline for your indication, how much revenue they have coming off patent and when, what they say they want to partner on, what they've actually licensed lately (usually a better guide), what got reorganized recently, and who owns that therapeutic area this month.
That's clinical registries, financial filings, a corporate page, a deal database, press releases, and LinkedIn. Some of those will contradict each other on any given day. Putting together one brief you'd actually trust takes most of a working day. Twenty accounts is a quarter.
And the timing is rough right now. Early stage biotech funding got tighter again this year: J.P. Morgan counted 50 seed and Series A rounds worth $2.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026, down from 60 rounds worth $3.7 billion a year before. When money is tight, a month of your CSO's time spent on browser tabs isn't just annoying. It shows up in the cash burn.
Why generic outreach fails faster here
The person reading your email is usually a scientist, and their job is to say no to most things quickly.
Search and evaluation teams ask the hard questions first, before they'll look at any data. What's the mechanism, and why this target? How is it different from standard of care and from the programs they're already tracking? What does the IP look like, and how many years of protection are actually left? Then clinical maturity, whether it can be manufactured by someone other than you, freedom to operate, any regulatory designations. Your actual data comes much later, after a CDA is signed.
An email that says "innovative platform" answers none of that. It also tells them you're sending the same email to everyone, and an asset that's being shopped everywhere looks like an asset nobody wanted.
The services side has the same trap with different words. Pitch manufacturing capacity to a company that just announced a site closure, or a discovery service for a modality they dropped last quarter, and you've told procurement you're working off a list instead of paying attention.
Write from one thing about them that's specific, current, and checkable. That's the whole trick.
What to actually look for
Relevance isn't personalization. It's writing to someone at the moment their priorities just changed. A handful of things do most of the work.
A patent cliff creating a hole. Roughly $300 billion in annual revenue across big pharma is coming off patent between now and the end of the decade. That's not background noise, it's what drives their appetite for assets that can bring in revenue on a specific timeline. Ipsen's head of oncology search and evaluation has said as much: looming patent expiries push them toward later stage opportunities with nearer term revenue. If your timing lines up with their gap, say so in the first line.
What they've actually licensed, not what they say they want. Look at the last twelve months of deals: the modality, the stage, the therapeutic area, the structure. It'll tell you more than any partnering page. 2025 was the biggest licensing year on record, around $250 billion across 516 deals, up from about $191 billion the year before. All of that is public, and all of it is a targeting list if you read it properly.
A program that just failed. A Phase III miss or a quiet pipeline cull leaves someone accountable for a hole they now have to fill. It's the strongest signal in the category and it doesn't last long. Hardly anyone works it systematically.
A reorganization or a therapeutic area exit. When R&D gets restructured or a site closes, two things happen at once: the vendor list opens back up and the org chart scrambles. Both help you, as long as you hear about it in weeks rather than months.
A new person in the seat. A new head of external innovation or a new therapeutic area lead arrives with their own view and starts a fresh round of evaluations. Priorities shift year to year at the same company, so who's in the job often matters more than which company it is.
Supplier requalification. This one's big for services companies right now. The BIOSECURE Act became law in December 2025, restricting federal procurement involving companies designated as "biotechnology companies of concern," with the official list expected from OMB later in 2026. Something like 79% of biopharma companies have at least one contract with a China based or China owned CDMO. Every one of those is a requalification conversation waiting to happen, which means an open evaluation.
More outsourcing generally. Pharma keeps handing more of the work outside. About 73% of new drug approvals in 2025 involved outsourced API manufacturing, well above the eleven year average of around 61%, and finished dose outsourcing hit roughly 65%. That's not a trigger on its own, but it tells you the door is open.
The conference calendar. JPM in January, BIO in June, BIO-Europe in the fall. Meeting requests go in months ahead, and scouts screen your profile before they accept anything. It's a deadline whether you like it or not.
What all of these have in common: each one gives you a reason to email today, and something specific to say.
A faster way to work
You don't need to research harder. You need to do it in a different order.
Start with the gap, not the company. Don't open a list of the top 20 pharma companies and work down it. Start with a gap you can fill, then ask who has that gap. Ten targets you picked for a reason will beat fifty you didn't, and it's less work.
Use the same brief every time. Decide once what you need to know: what's in their pipeline for your indication, what's coming off patent and when, what they've licensed recently, what their current strategy is, what's been reorganized, who owns the area, and what just changed. Then fill in the same template for every account. Building the same thing repeatedly is much faster than starting fresh each time, and much easier to act on.
Know who you're actually writing to. Most biotechs skip this and it costs them. If you're looking for a partner, your first reader is usually a scout whose job is to screen and pass things along, so whatever you send has to make sense without you there to explain it. If you're selling a service, it's a program lead or procurement, and they care about whether it works and what it costs, not about your mechanism. Same company, completely different email.
Let software do the gathering. Registries, filings, deal news, org changes: all of that can be collected automatically. Save your scientists for the part that needs a scientist, which is deciding what any of it means for your asset.
Say one thing, not everything. "Your Phase II readout in [indication] slipped and your only other program there is partnered" gets a reply. "Our platform enables novel therapeutics" gets deleted. One real observation is enough.
Work backward from the calendar. Finish your target mapping before meeting requests open. Have your follow up ready before you fly out. The two weeks after a partnering meeting matter more than the meeting.
Where SalesPort comes in
Everything above is a workflow: start from what changed, build the same brief every time, get to the right person, do your own thinking. The catch is that running it by hand is exactly what costs you the days. SalesPort handles the gathering so you can spend the time talking to people instead.
Account Intelligence tells you where to start. Rather than working a static list, your accounts get ranked by real activity and fit, so whichever one just had something change moves to the top of your week.
The AI Researcher builds the brief. It knows your product and how you sell, so it doesn't just hand back company facts. It reads filings, news, registries, and earnings commentary and pulls out the openings that connect to what you actually offer. Same format every time, in minutes.
Contact Finder gets you past info@. Pharma org charts move constantly with reorgs, exits, and acquisitions. SalesPort gives you the person who has the job now, with a verified email and a direct number, so a restructure doesn't cost you a season.
The Email Writer drafts the opener. It writes from the signal you just found, so the first line is about their situation instead of their About page.
Since this is life sciences, the compliance side matters too. SalesPort is GDPR and CCPA compliant, so the questions legal and procurement will ask are already answered.
What it won't do is make the call for you. It can't tell you whether your mechanism is differentiated, what your asset is worth, or how much to disclose and when. That's still your job, which is rather the point. Customers report about 80% less research time, 4x faster account research, and 20x more accurate data. The win isn't the hours in the abstract. It's that your CSO spends them on the science.
FAQ
How do biotech companies sell to pharma? Two ways. Either you're out-licensing, where a pharma company takes rights to your asset in exchange for money up front, milestones, and royalties, and you'll deal with business development and their search and evaluation team. Or you're selling a service, tool, or manufacturing capacity into their R&D and operations, where you'll deal with program leads or procurement. Both start the same way: find a specific gap you can fill, then find the person responsible for it.
How long should research take before I reach out? By hand, a brief you'd actually trust takes most of a working day, because everything you need is spread across registries, filings, deal databases, earnings calls, and org charts that keep changing. With the right tooling and a clear trigger to start from, teams get that down to minutes per account without losing anything important.
What should I be watching for? Patent expiries opening up a gap, what they've licensed recently, programs that just failed, reorganizations and therapeutic area exits, new people in BD or search and evaluation roles, supplier requalification driven by regulation, and the partnering conference calendar. Each one means someone's priorities just moved.
Who should I contact first? Depends what you're selling. For a licensing deal, usually a search and evaluation scout or a BD lead who covers your therapeutic area. For a service or product, a program lead, head of technical operations, or R&D procurement. Sending a licensing pitch to procurement wastes the one shot you get.
Why doesn't generic outreach work with pharma? Because they're screening against a whole portfolio and they ask the hardest questions first, starting with how you're different and what your IP looks like. A generic email answers none of that and makes it obvious you haven't done the work, which is usually enough for them to move on.
Can I speed this up without cutting corners? Yes, as long as you only automate the collecting. Pipeline status, deal history, regulatory milestones, and who's in which job can all be gathered for you. What any of it means for your particular asset is judgment, and that should stay with the people who understand the science.
What is the BIOSECURE Act and why does it matter? It became US law in December 2025 as part of the FY2026 defense authorization bill. It restricts federal procurement involving companies designated as "biotechnology companies of concern," and OMB is expected to publish the list later in 2026. Since most biopharma companies have contracts with China based or China owned CDMOs, it's setting off a wave of supplier audits, and every audit is an opening for a Western CRO or CDMO.
The takeaway
Pharma needs what biotech makes. Most of what the big companies sell didn't start in their own labs. That's the good news.
The bad news is that being needed doesn't get you a meeting. Their screening process is very good at filtering, and you get one shot at showing you understand the gap you're trying to fill.
So start with what just changed, use the same brief every time, know who you're writing to, let software do the collecting, and spend the time you save on the science and the conversation.
Want to see how much research time your team could get back? Book a SalesPort demo and watch a full pharma account brief build in minutes.
