Agilent’s Biovectra drives GLP-1 growth with ‘healthy’ contribution from the CDMO

Santa Clara, California-based Agilent Technologies on Wednesday reported financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 with strong contributions from Biovectra, its specialty Canadian contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), due to growing glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) demand.

“We delivered excellent GLP-1 growth of 50% with healthy contributions from our specialty CDMO, as well as our analytical lab business,” Agilent CEO Padraig McDonnell told analysts on Wednesday’s earnings call. “We’re very well hedged on the GLP-1 side both from our CDMO side, but also our analytical side. We are testing both on the orals and on the injectable side.”

Overall, McDonnell said the company’s specialty CDMO business “grew low-double digits during the quarter, and we continue to expect mid-teens growth for the year.”

Agilent’s GLP-1 growth was up 50% overall thanks to 120% growth in Biovectra and 7% growth in the analytical lab business, according to Leerink Partners analysts. At the same time, the analysts said that margins for Agilent’s Life Sciences & Diagnostics Markets Group were well below consensus estimates due — in part — to pressure on CDMO batch cadence with “batch-to-batch” variability.

“A batch is not a batch is not a batch,” CFO Adam Elinoff said on Wednesday’s call. “They’re all a little bit different and have different revenue profiles and different timing. So, just given the cadence we had in Q1, that also impacted the margin.”

McDonnell said that pharmaceutical onshoring represents a $1 billion addressable market opportunity through 2030. Leerink Partners analysts noted that about a third of that amount is “capturable” by Agilent.

“We’re seeing increased activity in U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturing as companies rethink resilience and capacity,” McDonnell said. “We continue to expect the first orders from reshoring to book late this year and the revenue impact from those orders to bolster top line growth in FY27 and beyond.”

Return on Biovectra investment

In 2024, Agilent acquired Canadian CDMO Biovectra which specializes in biologics, highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients, and other molecules for targeted therapeutics. Building on Agilent’s capabilities in oligonucleotides and CRISPR therapeutics, Biovectra’s specialization has helped to expand the company’s portfolio of services with sterile fill-finish and rapidly growing modalities, such as antibody-drug conjugates and GLP-1s.

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.

For fiscal year 2025, GLP-1 revenue was around $130 million split evenly between Agilent’s CDMO and analytical lab businesses. In a November earnings call, McDonnell told analysts 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.

Nucleic Acid Solutions Division

Agilent’s CDMO business also includes its Nucleic Acid Solutions Division (NASD), which has two cGMP facilities in Boulder and Frederick, Colorado. In Q4 of 2025, commercial programs drove 60% of NASD’s revenue with most of 2026 capacity already committed.

Elinoff on Wednesday’s earnings call said the mix of NASD business “continues to skew towards larger commercial batches with about 60% coming from commercial programs,” while commercial programs represent about only a third of Biovectra’s revenue.

NASD and Biovectra “have a little bit different profile but we expect, based on what we have now, that it will continue to ramp through the year,” he commented.

New NASD capacity (Train C), based on a $100 million capital expenditure investment, is slated to go live in early mid-2027 supporting growth beyond fiscal year 2026, according to Leerink Partners analysts.

On Wednesday’s call, McDonnell said Agilent is “delighted” to have that NASD capacity coming online “because we’re booked out for ‘26, and now we’re booking into ‘27 with larger commercial batches — so, it’s at the right time.”