Agilent’s Biovectra CDMO business grows on the back of GLP-1 strength

More than a year after Agilent Technologies completed its $925 million acquisition of Biovectra, a Canadian contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), the business is starting to hit its stride when it comes to the growing glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medication market.

In its fourth-quarter fiscal year 2025 financial results, Agilent reported GLP-1 revenue was about $40 million with approximately 60% ($24 million) of that generated by Biovectra. For fiscal year 2025, GLP-1 revenue was around $130 million split evenly between Agilent’s CDMO and analytical lab businesses.

The company expects continued growth in fiscal year 2026. Agilent CEO Padraig McDonnell told analysts on Monday’s earnings call that the “benefit” of GLP-1s on the CDMO side comes largely from Biovectra, where the company is “working on synthetic peptide manufacturing” and is actively involved with many of the GLP-1 manufacturers.

“We’re very pleased with Biovectra coming in strong for the year, driven by GLP-1 business,” McDonnell said. “We have key molecules planned for 2026. We’re very happy about the book of business we have for Biovectra, and it was an outstanding integration from our side which bodes well for the future and for future M&A as well.”

With the acquisition of Biovectra, Agilent acquired sterile fill-finish capabilities at Biovectra’s Prince Edward Island, Canada site — as well as microbial fermentation competencies — providing a footprint in peptide therapeutics and GLP-1s specifically for clinical-to-commercial scale production.

McDonnell noted that the capacity increases Agilent implemented at Biovectra in the third quarter “enabled a record fourth quarter that was in line with our elevated expectations.” He said the company remains “bullish” on the demand outlook for its specialty CDMO pharma services, which grew more than 40% on a core basis during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 and is a “differentiated” growth driver.

“With strong market momentum in our key modalities like siRNA and GLP-1s, we expect to drive mid-teens growth in the coming year as we get ready for opening new capacity in 2027,” McDonnell told analysts.

NASD side of the CDMO business

Agilent’s CDMO business includes its Nucleic Acid Solutions Division (NASD), which has two cGMP facilities in Boulder and Frederick, Colorado. In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, commercial programs drove 60% of NASD’s revenue with most of 2026 capacity already committed.

CFO Adam Elinoff on Monday’s earnings call said a $100 million capital expenditure investment includes incremental NASD capacity. That new capacity (Train C) is slated to go live in early mid-2027 supporting growth beyond fiscal year 2026, according to Leerink Partners analysts.

Simon May, president of Agilent’s Life Sciences & Diagnostics Markets Group, told analysts that it’s a “case of execution on existing capacity” in fiscal year 2026.

“We’ve got the capacity expansion starting to see the finish line coming to sight there towards the end of ‘26, and we’re looking to go live in the early mid-part of ‘27 with Train C,” May said. “As is always the case with the capacity expansion, there’ll be dynamics there around amortization and growing into the skin. I think we’ve got the basis pretty well covered there in ’26, and we’re well ahead in our thinking in that respect in ‘27.”

May also noted that siRNA momentum is adding to NASD’s growth.

“We’ve seen a lot of further reasons to validate the siRNA modality,” he said. “Just in the last couple of weeks, there was another FDA approval. So, we think that we are really well-positioned here in coinciding the strength of the modality, the future outlook of the modality, and our competitive position in the market.”