PharmaSource tracked 450 CDMO announcements in the first half of 2026, the busiest six months in our records. The US share of activity held firm at around 43%. Disclosed investment told a different story: it fell to $3.9 billion from roughly $13 billion a year earlier, and the largest new facility spending landed in Italy, Germany and India rather than the United States.
CDMO newsflow kept climbing in the first half of 2026. PharmaSource tracked 450 announcements between 1 January and 25 June, up 31% on H1 2025 (342) and 13% on H2 2025 (399). The first quarter alone produced 235, the busiest single quarter we have recorded.
The United States remained the center of that activity, and its share did not move. American companies and sites accounted for about 43% of regionally identified announcements in H1 2026 — almost exactly the 42% they held a year earlier. China was again the clear second market at roughly 8%, also broadly unchanged.
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What has changed is where the money is being invested. The headline-grabbing, multi-billion-dollar US capacity commitments from the first year of the Trump presidency, which were 92% of disclosed investments globally in H2 2025, fell to just 16% in the first half of 2026.
M&A held flat at 26 deals, the same as each 2025 half — consolidation continuing at a steady rather than transformational pace. The mix ran from bolt-on capability buys (Charles River–PathoQuest, Siegfried–Noramco) to portfolio-reshaping divestitures (Lonza’s CHF 2.3 billion Capsules sale to Lone Star) and private-equity entries with Ampersand making moves: Ampersand acquired Purna in February, and two Ampersand companies came together in April as Alcami acquired Tjoapack .
By volume, this was the strongest half we have tracked. Partnerships are the lifeblood of the CDMO sector and were again the most common type of announcement, and their share of newsflow continued to rise: 195 in H1 2026 (43% of all news), up from 138 in H1 2025 and 168 in H2 2025.
The US held about 43% of regionally identified announcements, level with a year earlier. China was second at around 8%, also unchanged. Below the top two the movements were modest: the UK slipped (from roughly 7% to 4%), while India and South Korea each edged up.
Last Year’s US Investment Wave Has Moved Offshore
In H1 2026, disclosed investment across all CDMO announcements fell to $3.9 billion in H1 2026, down from around $13 billion in each of the two preceding halves, and no single deal topped $1 billion. The largest facility investments of the half were booked not in the US but in Italy, Germany, India and across Europe.
Throughout the first year of the new US administration, with tariffs and reshoring high on the agenda, the 2025 investment leaderboard was dominated by large US capacity commitments:
- FUJIFILM Biotechnologies — $3.2 billion, Holly Springs, North Carolina
- Thermo Fisher Scientific — $2 billion in US manufacturing
- Johnson & Johnson — $2 billion in added US capacity at FUJIFILM
- Hans Scientific — $2 billion US expansion
- Hikma Pharmaceuticals — $1 billion in US manufacturing by 2030
In H1 2026, that pattern is absent. The largest facility investments of the half were almost all outside the US:
- Italy — BSP Pharmaceuticals, €700 million expansion (2026–2030); Axplora, $60 million at its Farmabios site
- Germany — Vetter, a new commercial injectable plant in Saarlouis, €50 million
- India — Aurobindo (TheraNym Biologics), Recipharm, Axplora (Vizag), Lonza (a new Hyderabad capability center), Neuland (commercial peptides) and Matrix (oncology)
- Switzerland — HAS Healthcare Advanced Synthesis, CHF 100 million
- Slovakia — Evonik, €80 million in biotechnology capacity
- Lithuania — Northway Biotech, €61 million for cell therapy in Vilnius
- France — Axplora, expanded ADC lyophilization
- Spain — Recipharm, high-potency oral solid dose at Leganés
- UK — FUJIFILM Biotechnologies opened what it called the UK’s largest single-use biopharma facility
- Netherlands — Cellares secured a Leiden site for a European manufacturing operation
The two largest disclosed deals of the half — BSP’s €700 million in Italy and Vetter’s new German plant — were both European.
This raises a reasonable question: did the 2025 surge reflect US investment being prioritized and pulled forward under tariff and reshoring pressure, with capital now flowing back toward the rest of the world? Much of the US capacity pledged in 2025 is in construction rather than the announcement phase, so a pause in new US commitments is not the same as a fall in US building. But the direction of the new money in H1 2026 is clear, and it is once again pointing outward.
Most-Mentioned CDMOs: Lonza Tops the Table
Lonza generated more news than any other CDMO in H1 2026, overtaking WuXi Biologics.
Lonza’s eight announcements in each quarter were more than double its run-rate of a year earlier, spanning its ADC platform integration, the CHF 2.3 billion sale of its Capsules & Health Ingredients business, and a steady stream of capacity and technology news.
- Listen to our interview How Lonza Is Outgrowing the CDMO Market with Bioconjugation, AI, and Regionalization with Christian Seufert, Head of Advanced Synthesis
WuXi Biologics, the most mentioned CDMO of 2025, led the first quarter but fell back to three mentions in the second.
Other risers include Charles River (1 to 7) and NorthStar (1 to 6) climbed fastest year-on-year, the latter on its radiopharmaceutical supply deals. Cellares (4 to 8) broke into the top group on cell-therapy automation, and Vetter (2 to 6) rose on its injectable capacity build-out.
Three categories stood out in H1 2026 for the volume and momentum of their newsflow, all of them trending upward. The deals from the most recent quarter show clearly what is happening in each.
Cell and gene therapy was the most active emerging category by a wide margin. Q2 2026 examples include Catalent expanding its CAR-NK work with Cartherics; Forge Biologics signing AAV gene therapy manufacturing deals with Epicrispr and Skylark Bio; Viralgen supporting AskBio’s Phase II Parkinson’s program and an Elaaj Bio gene therapy; Cellares partnering with ProTgen and TScan on automated T-cell manufacturing; and Northway Biotech committing €61 million to new cell therapy capacity in Vilnius. The breadth from autologous CAR-T to in-vivo AAV to allogeneic platforms is significant.
Radiopharmaceuticals are smaller in absolute terms but rising fast. Q2 2026 saw NorthStar secure FDA acceptance for its Ac-225 work, sign a multi-year Ra-226 supply agreement with QSA Global, and partner with LIFT on a Lu-177 radioligand; PharmaLogic opened a PET radiopharmaceutical facility in Atlanta and expanded its collaboration with Ratio Therapeutics; and Nucleus Radiopharma signed a commercial manufacturing agreement with Clarity Pharmaceuticals. The isotope supply chain is becoming a distinct sub-sector.
ADCs and bioconjugates moved from a sub-category of biologics to a focus in their own right, with Lonza especially active. In Q2 2026 alone Lonza signed ADC licensing agreements with Bristol Myers Squibb, Stipple Bio, InduPro and AmMax Bio (the last licensing Lonza’s SYNtecan platform); WuXi XDC signed a CDMO agreement with Akari Therapeutics; Piramal partnered with Ajinomoto on AJICAP conjugation and opened a new payload-linker manufacturing suite; and Shilpa Biologicals commissioned a dedicated ADC GMP facility.
Technology: The Proprietary Platforms CDMOs Are Building
A distinctive feature of H1 2026 was the volume of proprietary technology and platform launches — the capabilities CDMOs develop to differentiate their services. Two threads stand out: artificial intelligence entering quality and operations, and a cluster of new viral-vector platforms for gene therapy.
On AI, Catalent launched Qai, an enterprise AI tool designed to support quality management system processes. Elsewhere, Eurofins CDMO Alphora added an AI-driven tool to its solid-state screening programs, and Shilpa Biologicals launched a digital transparency platform for biologics clients.
The most concentrated activity was in viral-vector and gene therapy platforms, launched within a single quarter:
- Lonza — Xcite, an AAV stable producer cell line platform, plus an enhanced DNA-to-IND offering with six-month IND timelines
- Andelyn Biosciences — LVV Curator, a lentiviral manufacturing platform
- SK pharmteco — SKyvec, a viral vector platform for gene therapy
- VIVEbiotech — EvoLVcell, a lentiviral manufacturing platform
- ProBioGen — AGE1.CR.ReX, for recombinant MVA production
- Touchlight — EnClose, a cell-free dbDNA synthesis kit
Other proprietary launches spanned bioprocessing (FUJIFILM’s ShunzymeX purification technology, Altruist Biologics’ Altru-CON concentration platform), analytics and testing (Minaris’s AgentSCREEN NGS platform for adventitious virus detection and a three-day rapid mycoplasma turnaround), and small-molecule processing (Almac’s cGMP flow hydrogenation, Eurofins Alphora’s continuous flow capability). Taken together, they show CDMOs competing increasingly on proprietary capability, not just capacity, and concentrating that investment in the hardest-to-manufacture modalities.
What H1 2026 Reveals
- Newsflow is at a record high — 449 announcements, up 31% on H1 2025, with Q1 2026 the busiest single quarter on record.
- The US share of activity held firm — about 43% of regionally identified announcements, level with a year earlier; China steady in second at roughly 8%.
- Last year’s US investment wave moved offshore — disclosed investment fell to $3.9 billion with no billion-dollar deal, and the largest facility investments landed in Italy, Germany and across Europe and India.
- Partnerships remain the largest category — 43% of all news, weighted toward cell and gene therapy and supply security.
- Lonza overtook WuXi as the most-mentioned CDMO of the half.
- Cell and gene, radiopharma and ADCs are all trending up, and proprietary technology platforms — AI in quality, new viral-vector systems — are an increasing point of competition.
The question for the second half is whether the US investment pause is a genuine slowdown or a breather between build cycles, and whether the new facility spending continues to favor Europe and India over a US market that still, by every measure of activity, leads the field.
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