4 contract development and manufacturing organizations to watch in 2026

While contract development and manufacturing organizations faced macroeconomic and industry-specific headwinds in 2025, this year the outlook for CDMOs is decidedly more optimistic. Setting themselves apart in 2026 are large companies with global footprints who are well positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for outsourced services.

The criticality of CDMO services to the biopharmaceutical industry has never been greater. Although the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) segment has been the biggest historically and — together with finished dosage form — generates the highest growth, biologics has emerged in importance in recent years.

Currently, the biologics drug product space is one of the most attractive markets for CDMOs, according to William Blair analysts, who forecast 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.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs), and sterile filling are expected to drive demand in 2026, finds an analysis from Brian Scanlan, advisor of life sciences at Edgewater Capital Partners.

“CDMOs that differentiate through technology, equipment, and analytical expertise —particularly in RNAi, ADCs, PROTACs, and multi-specific antibodies — will be well positioned,” according to Scanlan, who added that smaller CDMOs “may even hold an edge through niche specialization.”  

Still, size matters and it’s no surprise that this year’s list of CDMOs poised to have the biggest impact on the biopharma industry in 2026 — for biologics and advanced therapies — includes some of the world’s largest CDMOs: Fujifilm, Lonza, Samsung Biologics, and WuXi Biologics.

Fujifilm

It’s hard to imagine a more pivotal year for Japan’s Fujifilm than 2025. In September, Fujifilm Biotechnologies achieved a major milestone with the grand opening of its $3.2 billion biomanufacturing site in Holly Springs, North Carolina — one of the largest commercial-scale cell culture manufacturing sites in North America, according to the CDMO.

Fujifilm has built identical large-scale production facilities in Denmark and the U.S., which are designed to modularly and seamlessly integrate manufacturing regardless of location. The launch last year of its North Carolina facility is the culmination of the company’s $8 billion global manufacturing investment, with Fujifilm starting to generate revenue from its capital expenditures — about $4 billion of that infrastructure was expected to be operationalized by the end of 2025.

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, Fujifilm is growing its KojoX network — the Japanese word for “improvement” and “factory” — with the addition of a United Kingdom facility that opens in the spring of 2026 and Toyama in Japan in 2027, as well as a new clone to follow in Texas. This year, Fujifilm Biotechnologies plans to leverage an internally developed and fully automated downstream purification system called SymphonX, designed to help solve the complexities of bioprocessing by simplifying material demand and scale-up, at its microbial manufacturing facility in Billingham, U.K.

Last month, Fujifilm completed construction of one of Japan’s largest bio CDMO facilities at its Toyama Second Factory in Toyama Prefecture, marking the company’s first antibody drug manufacturing plant in Japan. The facility, operated by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical and slated to begin operations in 2027, will serve as its bio CDMO hub in Asia with two 5,000L and two 2,000L single-use mammalian cell culture bioreactors designed to support manufacturing of antibody drugs and ADCs.

The Toyama facility builds on Fujifilm’s global bio CDMO operations across Europe and the U.S. and expands its manufacturing footprint in response to growing demand for biologics production in Asia. The site’s KojoX modular facility design, which standardizes equipment and quality systems with Fujifilm Biotechnologies’ U.K. operations, is meant to reduce construction timelines and support faster technology transfer.

Lonza

Lonza’s available U.S. capacity and global footprint are major competitive advantages, according to William Blair analysts. 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,” the analysts contend.

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.

The IT systems at the site are being “aligned” to communicate with Lonza’s global mammalian network, Diane Vallejos Lever, senior vice president and global head of sales for Lonza Integrated Biologics, told Pharma Manufacturing in late October at the CPHI Frankfurt conference.

U.S. capacity remains in high demand due to the threat of pharma-specific tariffs and Lonza is confident in its ability to sign more contracts for Vacaville in the near term. In its third-quarter 2025 qualitative update in October, the CDMO pointed to the signing of a “significant” long-term commercial supply agreement — with further signings expected in coming months — and said it plans to make additional investments over the next two to three years to upgrade Vacaville’s automation system and multi-purpose capabilities.

Currently, Vacaville is a multi-product cGMP mammalian manufacturing facility with 12,000L and 25,000L stainless steel bioreactors, contributing to a total bioreactor capacity of around 332,000L. Citing a key opinion leader (KOL) who previously led a large multinational CDMO, Leerink Partners analysts in a note to investors said that stainless steel facilities in the U.S. are drawing new attention due to the potential risk that the Trump administration might impose industry-specific tariffs on pharmaceuticals.

“The KOL noted that large stainless steel (15K-25KL) facilities are now seeing better utilization and interest from sponsors given looming tariff risk and potential repatriation of manufacturing from Asia,” according to the analysts. “This includes Lonza’s new 332KL Vacaville facility, which the KOL noted had previously struggled to fully commercialize its available capacity, but interest has accelerated due to customers reassessing deals with offshore suppliers.”    

Samsung Biologics

South Korea’s Samsung Biologics is transitioning to become a pure-play CDMO by spinning off biosimilar developer Samsung Bioepis. Despite geopolitical and trade tensions last year, the company expected annual sales growth of 20% to 25% in 2025, driven by the launch of its fifth manufacturing plant in South Korea and growth in its ADC business.

Last year, Samsung saw full utilization of Plants 1 through 3 and continued ramp-up at Plant 4, while bringing Plant 5 online at its Bio Campus II in Songdo, adding 180,000 liters of capacity. The facility features digitalized systems designed to boost quality and efficiency, raising Samsung’s total antibody production capacity to 784,000L.

“The completion of Plant 5 marked the beginning of Bio Campus II, showcasing in record time, capacity growth with unmatched digitalization,” according to the company. “Plant 5 not only meets established operational standards reflecting diverse client needs, it also integrates innovative infrastructure to support next-generation processes with agility and efficiency.”

Samsung Biologics also expanded its ADC operations, launching a dedicated facility with a 500L reactor and extending its collaboration with LigaChem Biosciences. Plans for a sixth plant in South Korea are underway to keep pace with rising demand for biologics.

Last month, Samsung announced it is acquiring 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.

In September, Samsung Biologics said it signed a $1.3 billion biomanufacturing agreement with an undisclosed U.S.-based pharmaceutical company. The multi-year agreement runs through 2029 and marks one of Samsung’s largest deals to date. Last year, the CDMO also announced a contract with another unnamed U.S. drugmaker worth more than $500 million and running through 2031.

WuXi Biologics

China-headquartered WuXi Biologics saw strong growth in 2025 driven by expanded services across its value chain, including discovery, pre-IND development, as well as clinical and commercial manufacturing. Demand was particularly robust for ADCs and multi-specific antibodies, with higher utilization of new and existing facilities — including the ramp-up of its Irish manufacturing site.

WuXi’s Dundalk, Ireland facility received approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as a commercial manufacturing site for a client’s biologic. The authorization marked the first commercial launch of a biologic from its Irish site. The facility includes perfusion capacity of 6,000L and 48,000L fed-batch capacity, making it a key hub for the company’s global network.

In 2025, WuXi’s intensified perfusion culture process platform achieved end-to-end, fully automated continuous drug substance production at pilot scale. The company said the system will be deployed across its major GMP facilities to improve manufacturing efficiency and flexibility.

Last year, WuXi Biologics started construction for a new modular drug product (DP) facility in Singapore, a 30,000-square-meter building which will be one of the world’s largest modular biologics DP facilities. Under the strategic collaboration between WuXi and Pharmadule Morimatsu, 470 modular components were being fabricated at Morimatsu’s plant in Changshu City, China. Once completed, the components will be transported to Singapore’s Tuas Biomedical Park for installation. Operations are slated to start in 2027.

In 2025, WuXi Biologics also began construction on a 95,000-square-meter microbial manufacturing facility in Chengdu, China, to expand commercial production capabilities. The site will be equipped with a 15,000L fermenter, with future expansion potential to 60,000L, and what the company claims will be China’s first dual-chamber lyophilization line. Wuxi will use its microbial expression platform for high-yield, scalable production of non-mAb recombinant proteins, with GMP readiness targeted for the end of 2026.

Last month, WuXi Biologics announced a memorandum of understanding with the Qatar Free Zones Authority to establish its first integrated contract research, development and manufacturing organization (CRDMO) center in the Middle East. The site will combine WuXi’s development and manufacturing services with Qatar’s infrastructure and regulatory support, providing biologics development for modalities including bispecific and multispecific antibodies as well as ADCs.