With over 10% of the biologics outsourcing market share, WuXi Biologics is now the second largest CDMO according to an analyst.
The China-based contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) reported its end of year results for 2021. Revenues increased by 83.3% year-on-year to $1.6 billion and net profits grew by 107%, totaling $550 million.
Furthermore, according to Chris Liu, an equity analyst at Jefferies, Wuxi is now the second largest player in the global biologics outsourcing market with 10.3% shares of it’s the sector’s total revenue in 2021 (compared to 6.4% in 2020).
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“Global big pharmas contribute approximately 40% of sales in 2021 vs. Approximately 20% in 2020,” he wrote in a note. “All top 20 global big pharma are now working with Wuxi Bio. Approximately 95% projects were retained after big pharma’s acquisition of small/medium biotechs.”
The firm has been involved in a string of facility expansions and acquisitions over the past few years. In March 2021, the firm bought over 90% of fellow Chinese CDMO CMAB Biopharma for an undisclosed fee. The acquisition added a biologics manufacturing plant in Suzhou, setting WuXi up to have 430,000 L of bioreactor capacity from 2024.
In the same month, WuXi added both drug substance and drug product manufacturing capacity to its ever-growing footprint through the acquisition of a single-use biologics production plant in Hangzhou, China from Pfizer.
The CDMO then invested $300 million in August 2021 at its site in Worcester, Massachusetts to up its bioreactor capacity from 6,000 L to 24,000 L to support demand for biomanufacturing onshoring.
If WuXi is the second largest player by revenue, Swiss CDMO Lonza is far out in the field with its biologics sector pulling in $2.9 billion for 2021.
Additionally, other large CDMO’s reported robust results, including Samsung Biologics, which is building a network and prepping to construct its fifth biomanufacturing plant in Korea. The firm bagged $1.28 billion in total biologics sales in 2021.
New Jersey headquartered CDMO Catalent also reported a strong 2021 revenue of $1.93 billion within its biologics segment. However, this division also includes cell and gene therapy services and technologies on top of mammalian cell culture sales.
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