How Sandoz Cut Its Supplier Network by 34%: A Step-by-Step Consolidation Playbook

At CDMO Live Europe 2026 Maik Talarczyk Head PMO External Supplier Operations, Sandoz, laid out the company’s three-year supplier network consolidation program, detailing a six-step make-vs-buy decision framework that reduced network complexity by 34% against its 2023 baseline.

Maik Talarczyk opened with a warning. “The fan is always on – and the shit is always flying.”

Sandoz entered 2024 managing approximately 500 finished dose form (FDF) suppliers — a network Talarczyk describes as fragmented and expensive to run. The initial diagnosis was that 20% of suppliers accounted for 80% of sales. But the structural problem ran deeper: commercial and technical operations weren’t talking to each other. Country organizations understood top-line sales and margin. They did not see what was happening in technical operations.

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