Savings and Sustainability Sought by Pharma Partners

Delegating concept. Wooden figurines and arrows as symbol of delegation. | Image Credit: © Vitalii Vodolazskyi - stock.adobe.com

The market research and consulting firm DelveInsight predicts that a global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) market already valued at more than $100 billion could potentially grow by almost half that amount, to an eventual total value of nearly $144 billion, over the second half of the 2020s.

That expansion across the market, which represents a theoretical compound annual growth rate of 6.5%, not only reflects the rise in some serious diseases, various cancers among them, but also the increasing popularity of outsourcing in the drug development process—which, DelveInsight said, comes with certain benefits in cost savings.

The firm was even retained by an unnamed “large pharma client,” looking to improve its API and finished dosage development, to produce a one-off report with the objective of benchmarking top CDMO candidates for outsourcing its projects, analyzing the CDMOs’ R&D, manufacturing, and commercializing capabilities.

Such attention to and emphasis on this research underlines the importance the bio/pharma industry is currently investing in its outsourcing decisions, and as the CDMO market continues to grow, the details of those decisions figure to get more and more precise.

Key outsourcing trends

To that end, when CPHI shared its top outsourcing trends for CDMOs across the globe for 2024, several key themes emerged. Chief among these were more careful consideration of geographic diversification and its implications, end-to-end or “one-stop-shop” organizations being able to improve efficiency and scalability, market shifts increasingly driven by merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, and equal responsibility between the drugmaker and the CDMO/contract research organization (CRO) engaged in a partnership—also, to a certain extent, similarly shared risk management responsibility between CDMO/CRO and customer.

Increasingly, the responsibilities referenced in seeking these potential partnerships are centered on sustainability. Pharmaceutical Technology® conducted a series of interviews in January 2025 that explored this aspect, perhaps best encapsulated by Saharsh Davuluri, vice chairman and managing director for Neuland Laboratories.

“Sponsors are increasingly requiring sustainable or green manufacturing practices when negotiating for partnerships with Neuland,” Davuluri said in the interview. “I think this trend is also kind of aligned with the broader industry shift toward sustainability … we are seeing that a lot of these companies are having their own approach ... or their own frameworks in what they would like to measure their partners with. This is not just about Europe versus [the United States], but also within a particular geography, every company has a different approach.”

Contract partnerships

As the 2025 market finds its footing, we present a non-exhaustive list of partnerships announced, developed, or forged so far in the year to date, representing companies around the world offering a wide variety of specializations. With this list summarizing only a fraction of the collaborations that have progressed in just mere weeks’ time so far in 2025, there will be plenty to watch for in the months ahead.

Read the article in the Bio/Pharma Outsourcing Innovation eBook.

Article details

BioPharm International®
Bio/Pharma Outsourcing Innovation eBook
February 2025
Pages: 25–27

Citation

When referring to this article, please cite it as Lavery, P. Savings and Sustainability Sought by Pharma Partners. BioPharm International Bio/Pharma Outsourcing Innovation eBook, February 2025.