CEO & Managing Director
Neuland Laboratories

Saharsh Davuluri

In this second half of a two-part midyear 2026 follow-up with Saharsh Davuluri, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Neuland Labs, he continues checking his December 2025 predictions—covering 

—against how the year has actually unfolded. Davuluri focuses on Chinese out-licensing, peptide manufacturing capacity, and the operational demands facing CDMOs. (

Neuland's Saharsh Davuluri checks in on Chinese out-licensing, peptide capacity, and CDMO agility six months after his December 2025 predictions.

Saharsh Davuluri's Midyear Take on the Shifting CDMO Landscape Covers Out-Licensing, Agility, and Investment Surprises

Access Part 1 of this interview, in which Davuluri reports steady progress on India manufacturing and AI adoption at midyear.


Davuluri confirms that the surge in Chinese out-licensing deals he flagged in December has only accelerated, and he expects this year's volume to exceed last year's already record-setting pace. That growth raises a question he says Neuland has spent considerable time trying to answer: when big pharma in-licenses a Chinese-originated drug, who ultimately controls the manufacturing decision? The Chinese originator or the Western licensee? He notes the picture varies by deal and that opportunities for non-Chinese CDMOs to work directly with Chinese out-licensors remain murky, though the broader push for manufacturing capacity outside China continues, particularly for peptides now expanding beyond metabolic/GLP-1 uses into cardiovascular, dermatology, and central nervous system indications.

Samsung Biologics' acquisition of PolyPeptide came as a surprise to Davuluri, who expected more organic capacity expansions and new US investment announcements from CDMOs given surging peptide demand, rather than consolidation via acquisition. He also notes that the flurry of "Make-in-USA" investment commitments he anticipated hasn't materialized to the degree he expected, calling this the one area where reality has lagged his December outlook.

On operational pressure, Davuluri says shrinking development timelines and the rise of new modalities are forcing CDMOs like Neuland to become more agile, with faster turnarounds, more flexible manufacturing lines, and smarter use of AI to manage fluctuating batch sizes. He also points to the structural shift of innovators increasingly license out regional commercialization rights rather than retaining global rights, requiring CDMOs to coordinate across multiple licensees for a single molecule, adding complexity to already tight timelines.

Finally, Davuluri addresses capital allocation strategy, noting that while small-molecule pipelines remain robust, the pressure to invest in newer modalities like peptides and oligonucleotides is intensifying. Finding the right balance between doubling down on core small-molecule strengths and expanding into these emerging areas, he says, is the central strategic challenge Neuland faces going forward.

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In this Part 1 of a two-part midyear 2026 follow-up interview, PharmTech reconnects with Saharsh Davuluri, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Neuland Labs, to check in on predictions he made in a three-part interview last December covering 

. Six months later, Davuluri finds his core theses largely holding up. (

Neuland's Saharsh Davuluri revisits his December predictions for 2026, reporting steady progress on India manufacturing and AI adoption at midyear.

Six Months Later: Neuland's Saharsh Davuluri Checks In on India, AI, and API Manufacturing

On manufacturing and geopolitics, Davuluri reports that despite global attention being consumed by the West Asia crisis in the first half of 2026, enthusiasm for India-based manufacturing has remained well-sustained, with growing reliance on India for API production. Neuland continues investing in large-scale peptide facilities, and demand for peptide manufacturing out of India keeps climbing. He reaffirms his December hypothesis that India will remain a critical global drug-manufacturing hub, noting the company is nearing several capacity milestones.

On digital transformation, Davuluri says Neuland is making steady progress toward the paperless, AI-enabled vision he described in December, though the gap between API manufacturing and more automated sectors hasn't fully closed. Neuland's near-term goal is a fully paperless R&D and process-development environment this year, eventually extending to pilot-scale and then commercial facilities, including the peptide plants currently being commissioned, which are being built with modern digital concepts baked in from the start. The company's new Hyderabad R&D campus remains on track for full readiness by November, with phased startups beforehand, and will pair AI tools with parallel synthesis equipment (eg, Radleys' Mya 4) discussed in the earlier interviews.

The biggest challenge, Davuluri says, isn't technical but human: change management. Training scientists to adopt and trust these new tools takes time—he estimates six to twelve months to build fluency—and Neuland is being deliberate about pacing that transition. He's also candid about the "rhetoric" around AI displacing workers, stressing that Neuland wants its scientific talent to see these tools as aids to their effectiveness rather than replacements, since morale and trust are as important to the rollout as the technology itself. Looking ahead, he targets sometime in 2027 for full-scale AI and automation in process development, underscoring that while the direction of travel from December remains unchanged, the human adoption curve—not the technology—is the pacing factor.

Saharsh Davuluri

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