Shaping
the Future of Biopharma Manufacturing
From economic challenges to breakthrough innovations, the CDMO industry is evolving rapidly.The Nice Insight Review 2025 explores the changes shaping capabilities, locations, and technologies worldwide.
Shaping
the Future of Biopharma Manufacturing
From economic challenges to breakthrough innovations, the CDMO industry is evolving rapidly.The Nice Insight Review 2025 explores the changes shaping capabilities, locations, and technologies worldwide.
Download the Full ReportThe CDMO Landscape in Numbers
400+
CDMOs tracked globally across all modalities
1,200+
Manufacturing sites
50
50 FDA Therapeutic Approvals in 2024, maintaining the 6-year average
15+
Therapeutic modalities in development
10.7%
CAGR projected for antibody-based therapeutics through 2030
44
CDMOs with
ADC conjugation capabilities
79
CDMOs offering
RNA-based manufacturing
$2B+
in new sterile fill-finish investment during 2024
4%
Forecasted growth in global R&D spend in 2025
The Global
Pipeline Holds
Steady
Despite funding pressures, the global therapeutic pipeline remained strong in 2024, with 50 new FDA approvals. The economic pressures facing the industry did not affect all drug modalities equally.
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That’s Nice
Annual drug approvals are an indicator for the clinical pipeline and by extension a barometer for the health of the CDMO sector... a decrease in approval numbers for a modality can indicate trouble ahead for the CDMO sector serving that modality.”
Four Foundational Platforms Support the Therapeutic Continuum
In the last 20 years, more than 15 different therapeutic modalities have been developed, each with specific manufacturing and operational challenges. CDMOs are reorganizing around four foundational technology platforms to support this continuum of new therapeutic modalities. Specialization within a foundational platform allows CDMOs to evolve into experts in the sector
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Cell
Engineering
Antibodies & Proteins
Small Molecules & Nucleic Acids
Viruses & Delivery Systems
Research Director,
That’s Nice
The therapeutics pipeline reveals a trend toward more precise drug targeting, focused on smaller patient populations and more complex therapeutics than developed historically.”
The Global CDMO Landscape
Throughout 2024 and into 2025, CDMOs, innovators, and investors in the biopharma sector are navigating a landscape defined by funding constraints, capacity overages in certain modalities and scarcity in others, evolving regulatory pressures, and a continued — if staggered — shift toward advanced therapies. Overall, the CDMO landscape mirrors the trends and challenges of the wider biopharma sector.
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Small Molecules APIs
Sterile Fill-Finish
Antibody–Drug Conjugates (ADCs)
RNA Therapeutics
Cell & Gene Therapy (CGT)
That’s Nice
Having fewer small-scale U.S.-based API CDMOs means that this market has almost reached critical mass, limiting innovators’ choices for 2025.”
Trade Policy
Reshapes
Manufacturing
Strategy
The April 2025 U.S. tariff announcements on imports from China, India, and the EU sent shockwaves through global sourcing.
10% baseline tariffs
Up to 70%
Latin America & India
Winners
Losers
Research Director,
That’s Nice
Simple product origin labels belie a complicated supply chain. The confusion around how tariffs are applied will complicate costing forecasts for consumables.”
The Rise and Fall
of Advanced
Therapies
After explosive pandemic-era growth, the RNA therapeutics market has cooled dramatically. While RNA technologies are expanding into oncology and rare diseases, commercial traction remains limited, and 2025 is a year of survival for many CDMOs in this space.
RNA approvals dropped from 10 in 2023 to 3 in 2024, leaving many facilities underutilized.
Synthetic RNA CDMOs are faring better, thanks to a steadier ASO/RNAi pipeline and more automated, cost-efficient manufacturing.
A rapid 10% decline in the cell and gene therapy (CGT) preclinical pipeline in 2023 led to challenging conditions for CGT CDMOs in 2024.
By the end of 2024, nearly 60% of CGT products in development were ex vivo gene-modified cell therapies. CDMOs offering cell therapy–based services should fare better than those offering gene therapy services during 2025. However, deeper analysis of the CGT CDMO sector reveals a more nuanced position, as many CGT CDMOs aim to build resilience by establishing integrated services across the supply chain.
- Viral vector CDMOs offer an integrated pDNA and viral vector service
- Cell therapy CDMOs provide comprehensive pDNA, lentiviral vector and cell therapy manufacturing services.
Strategy Director,
That’s Nice
Viral vector CDMOs face a double challenge in 2025: a declining preclinical pipeline coupled with over-capacity issues. Market consolidation could help by concentrating scientific expertise into a smaller number of specialist CDMOs.”
Outlook:
Cautious Optimism
- 4% increase in global R&D spend projected for 2025
- Biologics demand continues to expand in the U.S.
- Synthetic and enzymatic DNA manufacturing is entering mainstream adoption
- Multi-modality CDMOs and those supporting commercial products are best positioned to lead recovery
Officer, That’s Nice
Despite headwinds predicted for 2025, the CDMO sector will continue to play an essential role in enabling new drugs to reach patients. However, CDMOs need to remain resilient in the short- to medium-term. Inevitably, the sector will see attrition in the CDMO base in 2025, and more downsizing in skilled talent and human resources.”
Nice Insight is the market research division of That's Nice LLC, A Science Agency.
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Pharma’s Almanac
The biopharma sector faces heightened uncertainty and volatility in 2025, owing to a mix of legislative, trade, and political pressures that could reshape industry dynamics, particularly for CDMOs and investors.”