- About WXPress
- WXPress is your window into the world of WuXi AppTec and our global partners.
- Sitemap
- Events
- Contact
- Please reach out with any business inquires.
- communications@wuxiapptec.com
© 2026 WuXi AppTec. All Rights Reserved.Privacy Policy
As pharmaceutical innovation becomes increasingly specialized and globally distributed, the CRO/CDMO industry has grown in tandem with the success of the broader life sciences sector.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global contract research, development and manufacturing organization (CRDMO) market was valued at $260.51 billion in 2025. It is projected to grow from $281.16 billion in 2026 to $540.51 billion by 2034, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.5%. In other words, the sector is becoming a billion-dollar-scale opportunity.
From Changzhou and Taixing in China to Munich in Germany, Couvet in Switzerland and Delaware in the United States, and now Singapore, WuXi AppTec has been accelerating the expansion of its global manufacturing footprint in recent years.
▲WuXi AppTec Changzhou Site
For the decision to bring forward construction of the new Changzhou site, the rationale is straightforward, according to Mr. Feng Zhang, Senior Vice President and Head of API Manufacturing at WuXi AppTec: “There is only one core driver behind our accelerated global capacity expansion: customer demand.”
And with the CRO/CDMO market entering a trillion-yuan growth cycle, WuXi AppTec appears to have considerable room to grow.
Small molecules continue to advance rapidly, while a new wave of modalities is gathering momentum. Across the industry, demand for manufacturing capacity has been rising visibly in recent years.
Small molecules still account for roughly half of newly approved drugs globally. GLP-1 therapies are driving continued expansion in solid-phase peptide synthesis capacity; advances in drug delivery are helping overcome longstanding barriers in oligo development; and increasingly sophisticated linkers are enabling new approaches to targeted conjugation.
Mr. Zhang has observed a clear shift in the projects entering development.
“The complexity of project molecules has visibly increased in recent years. Whether it is a small molecule or a new modality, customers increasingly need to explore customized processes to identify the optimal solution.”
As projects become more technically demanding, pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms are increasingly turning to highly specialized CRO/CDMOs to translate innovative molecules into manufacturable products. According to an industry report, outsourcing rates are approximately over 60% for peptide and oligonucleotide CDMO services, and more than 70% for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). For projects related to emerging new modalities, working with a specialized CRO/CDMO is no longer simply an option; it is becoming the default industry model.
Biotechs need reliable partners capable of executing quickly on pipelines backed by venture and other forms of capital investment, turning scientific assets into tangible value. Multinational pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, are navigating patent expiries and portfolio shifts, creating demand for flexible external manufacturing networks that can supplement internal capacity. This environment presents an exceptional opportunity for an integrated platform such as WuXi AppTec.
Against this backdrop, the company has significantly expanded its manufacturing capabilities. By the end of 2025, WuXi AppTec’s total reactor volume for small-molecule APIs had exceeded 4 million liters. Its solid-phase peptide synthesis reactor capacity had surpassed 100,000 liters and is expected to expand further to 130,000 liters by the end of 2026. Total solid-phase synthesis capacity for oligonucleotides had also exceeded 8 moles.
WuXi AppTec can gain visibility into future demand by looking at the composition and growth of projects already moving through its platform.
Taking small molecules as an example. As of the first half of 2026, the company’s Research-stage business successfully synthesized and delivered more than 440,000 new compounds to customers over the past 12 months, with 155 molecules progressing from Research into Development. The number of small-molecule Development & Manufacturing (D&M) programs reached 3,731, with 699 new molecules added cumulatively. Projects in commercialization and Phase III clinical development increased by 15 during the first half.
For WuXi TIDES, which focuses on peptides and oligonucleotides, the number of D&M customers increased 39% year on year, while the number of molecules served rose 68%.
As drug developers continue to explore new ways to treat disease, more small molecules, PROTACs, peptides, oligonucleotides and conjugated drugs are entering global development pipelines. Many of these programs are moving through WuXi AppTec’s CRDMO platform, progressing from early-stage research toward clinical and commercial development.
“We are not building capacity based on orders for a single year. We are looking to the future to see which molecules global customers will need to turn into medicines,” Mr. Zhang says.
This ability to anticipate future demand is reflected in the deliberate sequencing of WuXi AppTec’s capacity expansion across its global network.
In the United States, the Middletown site in Delaware is scheduled to begin operations by the end of 2026 and will become WuXi AppTec’s largest operating site in the country. It will also mark the company’s first large-scale formulation manufacturing operation in the United States.
In Europe, formulation and packaging capacity at the Couvet site in Switzerland continues to expand, with a new spray-drying facility also expected to come online in the fourth quarter of 2026.
In Asia, the first phase of WuXi AppTec’s Singapore site is expected to begin production in 2027, supporting commercial API manufacturing for small molecules and TIDES-based medicines.
In China, two new small-molecule API manufacturing plants at the Taixing site began operations this year, while two additional plants dedicated to oligonucleotide, peptide and PMO manufacturing are expected to start production in 2027. The initiation of the new Changzhou site represents the latest step in this global capacity strategy.
These facilities, spread across three continents, are not simply a move in geographic diversification. They represent an extension of a core principle: staying close to customers.
“We are continuing to strengthen our global CRDMO network to provide customers around the world with a flexible and resilient supply network that better meets their needs,” Mr. Zhang says.
The pace of drug development is accelerating, but the physical timeline for building manufacturing capacity has not shortened to the same degree. A large-scale manufacturing facility built to global standards typically takes years to progress from planning to commercial operation.
That is why WuXi AppTec’s decision to invest ahead of demand is ultimately about more than infrastructure. It is about building the capacity that the industry will need before that demand fully materializes. Only by establishing capabilities before demand peaks can manufacturers provide sufficient supply when innovation moves into high-volume development and commercialization.
Building capacity ahead of demand would amount to little more than capital expenditure if it were simply a matter of constructing more facilities. What truly allows capacity to stay ahead of the industry is the delivery capability embedded within it.
Mr. Zhang recalls one particularly demanding test: an order from a long-standing customer. The previous year, WuXi AppTec had successfully delivered several tons of product to the customer. When the next order arrived, the required volume had multiplied, yet the delivery timeline had not been extended.
“Although WuXi AppTec has been proactively expanding capacity in recent years, meeting a demand that had multiplied in volume was still a big challenge,” Mr. Zhang says.
At a critical moment, the efficiency of the CRDMO model enabled teams across functions to work seamlessly together. Process validation and capacity expansion across multiple manufacturing lines were completed within a short period, while lean operational measures were implemented in parallel to further shorten the manufacturing cycle.
The result: the team delivered twice the previous year’s manufacturing volume on schedule, with a 100% success rate.
The customer highly recognizes WuXi AppTec as a “reliable partner.”
“Speed is not only about capturing the window to realize commercial value. It also means getting a new medicine into the hands of patients sooner,” Mr. Zhang says. “For customers, that creates business value. For patients, it represents hope. "More importantly, wherever capacity is located around the world, the standard of delivery remains consistent.
“Our global operating network is built on a unified quality system aligned with international standards. It gives customers greater flexibility while helping them build a safer and more resilient supply chain.”
In March 2025, the U.S. FDA inspected WuXi AppTec’s API manufacturing sites in Changzhou and Taixing. The Changzhou inspection was an unannounced inspection. Both sites completed the inspections with no critical findings. During the first half of 2026, WuXi AppTec completed 465 customer, regulatory, and third-party quality audits, with no critical findings.
The significance goes beyond regulatory compliance. It demonstrates that when manufacturing capacity is built ahead of demand and operated under globally consistent standards, it is capable of meeting rigorous scrutiny from customers and regulators wherever it operates.
Technology is another dimension of the company’s capability.
Mr. Zhang points to biocatalysis as one example. In a previous customer project, an enzymatic process reduced a five-step chemical synthesis to a single biocatalytic step, substantially improving efficiency. Beyond that, enzyme catalysis enhances stereoselectivity and reduces the use of organic solvents, offering significant advantages in both environmental sustainability and safety.
WuXi AppTec has since established a dedicated biocatalysis process technology platform. Over more than a decade, the platform has developed 650 enzymatic processes and delivered 440 manufacturing projects, including 20 projects that have reached Phase III clinical development or commercialization. In total, more than 500 tons of key chiral intermediates and APIs have been delivered through the platform.
The lesson is clear: long-term competitiveness does not come simply from following customer demand. It comes from anticipating where the industry is heading and putting the necessary capabilities in place early, so that when demand arrives, customers have an optimized solution ready to deploy.
According to Frost & Sullivan, the global outsourcing penetration rate for pharmaceutical R&D has increased from 34.8% in 2015 to 51.2% in 2024 and is expected to reach 64.5% by 2033. In other words, more than 60% of innovative medicines could ultimately rely on CDMO platforms for commercial supply.
In such an environment, companies that can stay ahead in both manufacturing capacity and capabilities are more likely to become indispensable infrastructure for the industry.
Seen from this perspective, WuXi AppTec’s global capacity strategy is more than a corporate decision. It reflects a broader shift toward a highly interconnected and specialized model of pharmaceutical innovation. When manufacturing capacity is built ahead of demand, one of the biggest constraints on scaling innovation has already been addressed.
The construction site now taking shape ahead of schedule in Changzhou may, several years from now, become part of the story behind a peptide medicine, an oligonucleotide therapy or an AI-designed molecule reaching patients — its value ultimately measured in something deceptively simple: on-time delivery.
That is where the deeper significance of a platform company becomes clear in a highly specialized industry. It allows innovators to pursue new medicines without waiting for capacity, and patients to receive those medicines without waiting for manufacturing.
“We are always committed to making our manufacturing platforms more efficient and more capable. That is the best response we can give to the trust our customers place in us,” Mr. Zhang says.
Perhaps that is the simplest definition of putting capacity ahead of the industry: it is not about betting on the next hot trend. It is about recognizing a more fundamental certainty — that humanity will continue turning molecules into medicines — and building the infrastructure for that future before it arrives.