2025 positions large CDMOs with global footprints for growth amid outsourcing trends

Despite growing geopolitical and trade tensions, large contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) with global footprints — such as Lonza and WuXi AppTec — are well positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for their outsourced services.

Tariffs, challenging funding environments, and intensified cost pressures are accelerating the biopharmaceutical industry’s supply chain shift toward outsourcing, according to JLL’s 2026 Life Sciences Real Estate Trends to Watch report.

JLL’s survey showed that 40% of life sciences companies are responding to economic uncertainty by outsourcing, while 38% indicated that they are examining their supply chains.

The commercial real estate and investment management firm says that companies are “increasingly leveraging contract organizations — CROs, CDMOs, CMOs — to optimize their operational footprint, manage cash flows, and drive efficiency gains.” Among large publicly traded CDMOs, JLL predicts that revenues are “anticipated to have doubled in 5 years when Q4 2025 numbers are released.”

William Blair analysts are also feeling bullish about the growth outlook for CDMOs in 2026. Companies “unanimously confirmed” in late October at the CPHI Frankfurt conference that industry capacity — particularly for large-scale biologics drug substance manufacturing and aseptic fill-finish — remains insufficient to meet current demand which “should be capable of supporting recently announced material capacity expansions from CDMOs and large pharma,” according to their report.

The analysts concluded that commercial manufacturing demand “remains robust, supported by strong drug approvals over the last couple of years, a healthy outlook for drug sales moving forward, and a growing appetite for outsourcing.”

The biologics drug product space is currently one of the most attractive markets for CDMOs, according to William Blair, which forecasts a strong outlook for drug sales and continued increases in outsourcing penetration to drive a 10.6% sales compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2025 through 2029.

Switzerland’s Lonza and Siegfried

Lonza’s available U.S. capacity and global footprint are major competitive advantages, contends William Blair. The Swiss-headquartered company is the only CDMO with available large-scale U.S. mammalian capacity and is also one of only a few contract manufacturers “with the global scale necessary to support customers across locations, modalities, and stage of development,” according to the analysts.

The integration of Lonza’s biologics site in Vacaville, California — one of the world’s largest, acquired for $1.2 billion from Roche in 2024 — is progressing. The company has committed $500 million in upgrades to the quality system and IT infrastructure at the sprawling facility.

Siegfried, another global CDMO headquartered in Switzerland, focuses on small-molecule drug substance manufacturing and drug product manufacturing across a variety of dosage forms, primarily oral solids and sterile injectables. Siegfried’s small molecule sales are expected to drive 5.9% CAGR through 2029, according to William Blair analysts.

In a note to investors last week, the analysts highlighted Siegfried’s “solid execution” of its EVOLVE+ strategy including building out capacity in higher-growth areas —such as spray drying and fill-finish — positioning the CDMO for “meaningful margin expansion” thanks to the company’s efficiency initiatives.

At the same time, the analysts called out Siegfried’s relatively limited U.S. footprint given the Trump administration’s domestic manufacturing push with the threat of pharma-specific tariffs. However, they believe Siegfried is nonetheless in a good position to navigate the geopolitical and trade environment.   

“We think it is unlikely that these policies have any material near-term impact on Siegfried given the significant hurdles associated with changing commercial manufacturing sites (90%+ of Siegfried’s revenue stems from commercial products) and the significant time needed to build and qualify additional U.S. capacity,” the analysts said.

They added that these policy changes “will ultimately lead to more manufacturing regionalization, which we view as a net positive for global CDMOs like Siegfried.”

CDMOs leverage Asia, US footprints 

An analysis in late October — released by De Facto Communications — found that CDMOs in China and the U.S. are best positioned to capitalize on current outsourcing trends.

The report from Brian Scanlan, advisor of life sciences at Edgewater Capital Partners, predicts that American and Chinese CDMOs will experience the fastest growth, with antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs), and sterile filling anticipated to drive demand in 2026.

CDMOs expected to thrive in a constantly changing geopolitical environment are those “aligned with an uneven pharma funding landscape, equipped for specialized solutions, and agile enough to navigate global headwinds,” according to Scanlan.

One of those companies is China’s WuXi AppTec. With 20 R&D and manufacturing sites across Asia, Europe, and North America, the CDMO offers integrated, end-to-end services. This year, WuXi AppTec accelerated its global development and manufacturing capacity expansion, growing total reactor volume for small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients and total reactor volume for solid phase peptide synthesizers.

The company is also building a new campus in Middletown, Delaware focused on manufacturing, packaging, and testing of capsules and tablets — for both clinical and commercial distribution — which is expected to begin operations by the end of 2026.

South Korea’s Samsung Biologics is transitioning to become a pure-play CDMO by spinning off biosimilar developer Samsung Bioepis. Despite current geopolitical and trade tensions, the company expects annual sales growth of 20% to 25% in 2025.

This week, Samsung Biologics announced it is buying Human Genome Sciences’ biologics manufacturing site in Rockville, Maryland from GSK for $280 million. It is the CDMO’s first U.S.-based manufacturing facility and is intended to strengthen its global network and U.S. supply chain presence.

West Monroe’s 2026 life sciences industry outlook report recommends companies collaborate with CDMOs that have both U.S. and global capacity, creating hybrid models that balance resilience, cost, and regulatory complexity.

The consulting firm says Fujifilm Biotechnologies’ new $3.2 billion biomanufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina is an example of how companies are expanding U.S. capacity while maintaining globally distributed networks. Fujifilm’s KojoX network links the CDMO’s manufacturing facilities in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. to provide flexible capacity and local supply.

The company’s Holly Springs site, one of the largest commercial-scale cell culture biomanufacturing sites in North America, is a clone of its Danish facility. The CDMO built identical large-scale production facilities in Denmark and the U.S., which are designed to modularly and seamlessly integrate manufacturing regardless of location.

Fujifilm is growing its KojoX network — the Japanese word for “improvement” and “factory” — with the addition of a UK facility that opens in the spring of 2026 and Toyama in Japan in 2027, as well as a new clone to follow in Texas.