Get the precise balance of agility, control and expertise with mixed FSP/FSO model solutions

Mixed FSP/FSO model solutions combine elements of functional service provider (FSP) partnerships and full-service outsourcing (FSO) into a customized delivery model designed around your organization’s specific needs.

These bespoke arrangements allow sponsors to retain control over selected functions while leveraging outsourced expertise across others, creating the right balance of flexibility, oversight and operational efficiency.

These solutions are particularly valuable when sponsors want to:

• Retain ownership of strategically important functions
• Add specialized expertise to existing outsourcing arrangements
• Scale resources quickly as priorities shift
• Expand into new therapeutic areas or geographies
• Maintain continuity across portfolios
• Transition between insourced and outsourced operating models

Because the model is highly adaptable, it evolves alongside changing business and clinical development needs.

These solutions help sponsors align outsourcing with their internal capabilities while maintaining flexibility to respond to changing priorities. By combining embedded functional expertise with broader outsourced delivery, sponsors gain greater operational agility, improved resource utilization, stronger governance and the ability to accelerate timelines without sacrificing oversight or quality.

This approach creates greater continuity across programs, stronger operational alignment and more effective decision-making across sponsor and CRO teams. The result is a partnership model designed to help sponsors maintain their control and momentum through increasingly complex business conditions, shifting development priorities and evolving clinical demands, while building a more resilient clinical development ecosystem for the future.

Success starts with the right foundation. We have a proven structure and methodology to support sponsors transitioning to mixed FSP/FSO models—or for those using a mixed FSP/FSO model as a bridge to transition operating structures. And unlike organizations that manage FSP partnerships and FSO independently, our FSP and FSO organizations share talent, systems, processes and infrastructure. This integrated operating model enables seamless collaboration, greater transparency and more efficient execution across every engagement.

Our consultative approach starts at the very beginning of the relationship and focuses on clarifying goals, roles, priorities, and pain points, evaluating internal capabilities and operational gaps, and designing the right balance of embedded support, outsourced delivery, and governance—enabling sponsors to retain control where they want it to leverage their existing strengths and capabilities.

Supported by more than three decades of experience, global infrastructure and the full capabilities of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, we design bespoke mixed FSP/FSO model solutions that adapt alongside your organization while delivering the expertise needed to solve increasingly complex clinical development challenges. Each solution is backed by the full force of our training, resources and expertise—and delivered with an uncompromising commitment to quality. And because our experts are located around the world, we bring a nuanced understanding of people, processes and regulatory landscapes to enable rapid deployment across multiple time zones.

At the PPD clinical research business, we work collaboratively with sponsors to develop financial and contracting models that balance flexibility, accountability, and cost control across different activities and stages of development. Embedded functional support, for example, may be best aligned to capacity-based approaches—such as dedicated FTE-, role-based, or time-and-materials resourcing. More centralized or full-service delivery activities may be better suited to outcome- or deliverable-based models, including unit pricing, milestone payments, or defined functional deliverables. These flexible contracting models allow sponsors to scale and adapt resource levels, oversight approaches, delivery structures and financial arrangements in response to evolving workload demands, timelines, risk profiles, and portfolio priorities.

The result is scalable access to specialized expertise and resources as demands evolve. Sponsors operating on aggressive timelines, for example, may rapidly deploy highly skilled staff and services while maintaining continuity, quality and oversight. Or we can bring together functional and therapeutic expertise in highly targeted ways (such as data management experts with deep CAR-T and cell and gene therapy experience) allowing sponsors to access support aligned not only to operational needs, but also to the scientific and clinical realities of their programs. And when needs extend beyond traditional clinical development support, our clients have access to the full spectrum of capabilities of Thermo Fisher Scientific.