Amid a nearly $1 billion GLP-1 manufacturing expansion that began in 2024, CMDO CordenPharma is doubling down on its peptide capacity ambitions.
The company—which already boasts production operations in Europe and North America—is paying an undisclosed sum to acquire U.S.-based peptide contractor AmbioPharm. With the deal, CordenPharma is in a position to absorb new manufacturing facilities in South Carolina and Shanghai, according to a May 27 release.
AmbioPharm’s dual sites in the U.S. and China, which collectively employ around 400 people, are expected to augment the existing peptide platform that CordenPharma has been building out in recent years, with the combined companies poised to offer multiple different peptide synthesis approaches, per the release.
CordenPharma envisions that the deal will afford its clients “flexible options” to align their specific production needs for complex, long and high-purity peptide active pharmaceutical ingredients (API).
Meanwhile, the addition of AmbioPharma’s Shanghai site will give CordenPharma an inroad into China, building on the 11 other sites the CDMO currently operates in Europe and the U.S., with a springboard into a third continent.
Stateside, AmbioPharm’s plant will represent CordenPharma’s second plant for peptide manufacturing in the U.S., joining the Boulder, Colorado, plant the company purchased from Roche back in 2011. In turn, the CDMO expects to be able to “deliver fully U.S.-based peptide API supply options” for large-scale commercial projects.
CordenPharma did not say when the deal is expected to close.
The company’s latest capacity expansion play comes after CordenPharma unveiled plans in 2024 to invest 900 million euros (then worth roughly $981 million) to bolster its GLP-1 peptide production capacity over a three-year span.
The investment move dovetailed with rampant demand for GLP-1-based diabetes and obesity meds, such as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s respective weight loss blockbusters Wegovy and Zepbound. The success of those companies’ incretin therapies has kicked off a wave of additional development activities in the metabolic medicine space.
One such company tapping into CordenPharma’s growing capacity is prominent obesity upstart Viking Therapeutics, which last year agreed to pay the CDMO a total of $150 million through 2028 for production of its dual GIP/GLP-1 agonist VK2735.
Aside from drafting plans to scale up in Boulder, CordenPharma in March 2025 said it would spend 500 million euros of its investment tranche to build a new peptide facility outside Basel, Switzerland, which it said it expects to commence commercial operations in 2028. CordenPharma clarified that the facility will be equipped to handle both GLP-1 and non-GLP-1 peptide projects.
The site is expected to create some 300 new jobs.