CDMO Trends Leading to Industry Growth

With rising levels of growth and innovation, CDMO is witnessing new trends that businesses should pay attention to overcome the obstacles to progress.

FREMONT, CA:The last two years have been especially significant for the biopharmaceutical industry, resulting in significant growth. There is a radical innovation scale ranging from the race to develop COVID-19 vaccines to discoveries in novel biologics treatments and more. However, there have been many challenges standing in the way of this progress, from supply chain disruption to a lack of specialist capabilities to get niche treatments to market. Despite these obstacles, CDMO trends are becoming more important for companies to focus on.

Digital Transformation

The disruption to global supply chains caused by the pandemic has led many CDMOs to rethink their business priorities and focus their attention on enhancing their operational risk profiles. Many companies are turning towards digital transformation technologies and analytical tools to do so. Digital disruption in the pharma industry has been a recurring theme for many years, but with these new technologies continuing to grow, they will gain more prominence among CDMOs.

Companies should prioritise their uptake and implementation of advanced digital manufacturing and analytical technologies for pharma to keep up. These are the connected, collaborative tools the CDMO industry should use to realise shorter development timelines and achieve stable, secure supply chains, ensuring patients’ safe, affordable access to pharmaceutical-based healthcare.

The Biologics Boom

There is an undeniable boom in the biological space, driven by the race to develop vaccines and immunotherapies for COVID-19. In the previous year, many new health tech and biotech unicorns were created and experienced rapid growth.

Despite their advancements, these biotech companies encounter real challenges in successfully bringing their discoveries to market. Developing and manufacturing biologics is complex, requiring specialist equipment, aseptic processing, and expert guidance and support throughout the entire process. Many new biotechs lack the infrastructure or in-house capability to develop their innovations themselves.

Those best placed to support firms in getting their discoveries to market will be specialist CDMOs with a dedicated biologics capacity. There will be more CDMOs investing in new lines and facilities in the coming years to accommodate further growth and accelerate patient access to the latest biotech innovations.

OSDs for Cancer Treatment

Serving as a more patient-centric alternative to parenteral administration, the rise of oral solid dose (OSD) forms for cancer treatments is a crucial trend taking place across the pharma industry. Treatments for these conditions increasingly harness highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs) with poorly soluble chemistries. This indicates that they often require resource-intensive, sophisticated formulation solutions to enhance their bioavailability as they enter the gastrointestinal tract. However, although parental drugs are easier to develop and can be brought to market faster, the patient-centricity of OSDs means that they are worth the additional time and financial investment.

As the biologics space continues to grow, CDMOs will prioritise their investment in expanding their specialist expertise and capabilities in the coming years to achieve faster development timelines and the supply continuity demanded by the market.