Shilpa Medicare showcased its new‘ hybrid’ CDMO offer Fritschi – Business very strong at Carbogen Amcis
Axplora also expanded its commercial ADC production capabilities at its Le Mans site shortly before DCAT week. The new workshop includes three hastelloy reactors with a production range of 30-200 L, plus space for a fourth, and a dedicated hastelloy filter-dryer for high-level containment and safety. It can produce batches of up to 1.5 kg. The company is also bringing on new workshops for complex and energetic chemistry at its small molecule API site in Leverkusen.
The main news at Carbogen Amcis was Dr Stephan Fritschi succeeding Pascal Villemagne as CEO, with the latter moving to small moleculefocused CDMO Seqens. Fritschi confirmed to SCM that“ business is very strong right now”, having picked up from late 2024 onwards, though the geopolitical situation makes it hard to predict far ahead with any confidence.
The company has seen some of its strongest growth in DP. Its newest facility at Saint-Beauzire in France was built as part of a strategy of focusing on high potency, where oncology is driving growth in both small and large molecules at all scales. Carbogen Amcis also offers a one-stop shop concept in ADCs, which it believes chemists appreciate.“ This is a very strong part of the market and a growing part of our business, with a new generation of ADCs coming up,” said Fritschi.
Small molecules keep pace
Seqens itself has invested some € 40 million on additional HPAPI capacity and an R & D workshop for polymers at its Aramon site near Avignon since 2021. This was completed in Q1 2025, bringing the investment cycle to a close, said Tristan Chabanis, managing director of the Innovative Pharmaceuticals business unit. The company has also invested € 12 million over the past three years to upgrade the Limay site, with support from the French government under the France 2030 project to relocate the production of certain important APIs.
Going forward, the company will have a CDMO manufacturing network of four GMP and two non-GMP sites in France, Germany and Finland, as well as three development labs in Franc and the US. It will close the site at Villeneuve-la-Garenne near Paris and relocate some of its capabilities. The site was impacted by the bankruptcy of a key customer on whose behalf Seqens had invested heavily.
“ We have seen a significant change in the business dynamics since the summer of 2024, with an
increase in the number of requests and projects,” Chabanis told SCM. Projects continue to relocate from Asia to Europe and the US. Q4 2024 was“ very good”; Q1 2025 projects acquisition was“ probably a bit slower”, because the funding problems for European biotechs and the overall uncertain environment delayed several projects. The fundamentals remain healthy, however.
Among other companies still focused on small molecules, Spain’ s Esteve Química is investing € 100 million to bring capacity at its site in Celrà near Barcelona to 450,000 L, with reactors of up to 12,000 L, as well as more HPAPI capabilities. Daniel Calvi, head of business account management said that this should come onstream in 2026. Esteve is also spending € 30 million on new workshops at Shaoxing, China.
At lower scale, US firm Procos revealed that it has completed the first phase of a $ 11 million investment, bringing on four multipurpose lines with a total of 20 1,000-6,000 L reactors and a total of 73,300 L of capacity, plus four centrifuges and a dryer. It will feed into the firm’ s large-scale capacity of 720,000 L and 350 tonnes / year of APIs and intermediates.
24 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981