Recipharm CEO says 2025 was ‘not an easy year’ for the CDMO

As a global contract development and manufacturing organization, Recipharm has an international footprint that rivals some of the largest players in the CDMO space. However, 2025 “was not an easy year” due to geopolitical and macroeconomic headwinds which weighed on the Swedish-headquartered company.

“There was a lot of uncertainty in the market for the first six months,” CEO Greg Behar told Pharma Manufacturing. “A lot of companies had challenges on financing, especially the biotechs, and the whole tariff discussion plus bringing manufacturing to the U.S. — of course, all the companies went back to their drawing boards for strategy discussions which slowed down a lot of the decision making.”   

In 2024, Recipharm generated record-breaking revenue of €827 million, a 7% year-over-year increase driven by the growth of its biologics business. While the company has not yet released its audited financial results, Behar acknowledged that 2025 was an “okay year” for the CDMO “but certainly not the year that we had expected.”

Recipharm saw “some recuperation” in the second half of last year and regained momentum, according to Behar, who said amid these challenges the company took the opportunity to deliver on some projects and increase capacity with key investments.

Capital expenditures kick in

Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Recipharm is a private company that operates 17 facilities in 10 countries around the world and employs more than 5,000 employees in Europe, India, and the U.S.

In February, Recipharm opened a new Pilot Scale Development Center in Germany, complementing its existing capabilities in oral solid, sterile fill-finish, and biologics. The facility is designed to support pilot-scale development production of oral solid dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, and granules.

The new center includes three GMP pilot-scale rooms equipped for dry and wet granulation, powder processing, and advanced tableting solutions. It also features a compactor, a dual-filling capsule filler, a tablet press, and analytical tools to support material characterization.

Last year, Recipharm designated its Cuxhaven, Germany facility as a Center of Excellence for Analytical Services to support advanced therapy and biologics programs. The multi-product site serves as a strategic hub supporting projects across the European Union and U.S. Newly renovated GMP analytical laboratories provide scalable capacity to accommodate programs from early development through commercial manufacturing.

In June, Recipharm’s biologics division introduced a new Process Analytical Technology (PAT) platform designed to bring real-time process insights to biomanufacturing. The mobile and modular system — called QC on Wheels — integrates advanced analytical tools with proprietary orchestration software.

“We are integrating QC directly into the manufacturing process instead of relying solely on end-product testing which takes a long time,” Behar said. “It enables us much faster execution on the shop floor.”

Capable of handling multiple concurrent analyses, the system is engineered for deployment across a range of therapeutic applications at commercial scale, according to Recipharm. The PAT platform is meant to help reduce process footprint, improve efficiency, and minimize waste, while empowering operators with greater control over real-time decision making. Recipharm is looking to spin off the QC on Wheels technology in 2026 and create a new company with partners to commercialize the platform.

In October, Recipharm inaugurated newly commissioned parenteral development and sterility laboratories at its Bengaluru, India site. The new facilities expand the CDMO’s capabilities in sterile pharmaceutical development and analytical testing, enhancing its global network for advanced therapy manufacturing, according to the company.

That same month, Recipharm announced that its Advanced Bio division received an additional grant from the Gates Foundation. The initial grant focused on advancing PAT for xRNA production. The new funding focuses on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into those technologies for continuous xRNA vaccine manufacturing.

The new project includes developing an AI-enabled manufacturing simulator that allows virtual process development and experimentation, potentially reducing vaccine development costs and timelines. Additional work will target predictive maintenance and real-time analytics in existing systems to improve manufacturing efficiency and reliability.

Eliminating contamination

Last month, Recipharm launched a dedicated manufacturing capability for non-bacterial beta-lactam tablet production, which the CDMO said aligns with final draft guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As a result of the investment, the company secured a partnership with an undisclosed biopharma company to manufacture non-bacterial beta-lactam tablets.

The installation of specialized manufacturing capabilities at Recipharm’s Bengaluru site provides available capacity to manufacture non-bacterial beta-lactam compounds, while fully preventing cross-contamination with other pharmaceutical products as the FDA requires, according to the company.

Recipharm also claims it is the only CDMO with blow-fill-seal (BFS) capabilities for both biologics and small molecules from early phase development through to commercialization. BFS is a single continuous process within a sterile closed system in which containers are formed, filled, and sealed minimizing the risk of contamination.   

In 2025, the company secured a new contract with a “top five” global ophthalmic organization that involves the rapid production of clinical trial material for a Phase 1 study, while it also signed an agreement with a global ophthalmic biotech to support a Phase 2/3 ophthalmic suspension program.

Behar noted that Recipharm is working on moving BFS from being just a solution for ophthalmics and respiratory applications to biologics and temperature-sensitive compounds.

“We are better equipped in 2026” to take advantage of “positive momentum with good innovation,” Behar said. “We believe that the market is more optimistic. Financing seems a little bit better. It’s not great yet but it is better. The momentum keeps growing.”