On the heels of yesterday's story about India reaping the benefits of pharma contract manufacturing, we ran across this statistic: Contract drug production is expected to grow at a rate of 11 percent per year. And it's expected to hit $299 billion globally by 2014, up from $177 billion this year, according to a report from BCC Research.
That's quite an increase, and it's fueled in part by drugmakers' desire for lower costs as the patent cliff nears, drug development slows, and payers of all stripes grow increasingly price-conscious. "Many pharmaceutical companies choose outsourcing as an option... to better market their products without spending time in drug discovery and the manufacturing process," BCC notes.
The pharma contract manufacturing business breaks down into four segments: OTC and nutraceuticals, projected to reach $177 billion in 2014; bulk drugs and drug doses, which together will be worth some $73.1 billion by then; in-development drugs, $40.6 billion; and packaging, $8.1 billion. By the time 2014 rolls around, every one of those segments will have doubled in size from 2007 levels. Food for thought.
- read the BCC release
- see the Outsourcing Pharma news
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