Pharmapack Reports on Key Trends for 2025

On Jan. 13, 2025, Pharmapack Europe and CPHI announced the key trends they have identified for the pharmaceutical industry going into 2025. High on the list of those trends is the long sought-after return of funding liquidity, primarily from increased venture capital investments and private equity capital for mergers and acquisitions. Enhanced supply chain resilience is also anticipated in the year.

Conversely, the entities have identified insecurities that are expected to plague the 2025 year, including ongoing uncertainty surrounding the intentions and practical implications of the BIOSECURE ACT in the United States as well as Donald Trump’s return as president of the country, which Pharmapack has termed “the Great Known Unknown”.

Yet, despite the uncertainties facing US pharma companies, both Pharmapack and CPHI experts emphasize that strong fundamentals underlining the industry have nurtured widespread optimism. These experts are predicting a landmark year in 2025, which they expect will be driven by a boom in biologics, robust pipelines, and growing profits from glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs for treating diabetes and related obesity. In addition, new manufacturing hubs are expected to be established, which will accelerate supply chains. Outsourcing will be a key driver of drug discovery, development, and commercial supply, the experts predict (1).

The uncertainties tied to Trump’s return to office have led many industry analysts to caution an "expect the unexpected" attitude, but the pharma market has responded with “surprising optimism,” notes Pharmapack. “There is even a measured ‘wait-and-see’ attitude toward the controversial appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Remarkably, eight years after our initial New Year’s prediction release on a Trump presidency as the ‘great unknown’ (2), this 2.0 iteration has been met with a surprisingly composed response from the pharma sector. The takeaway? While changes are anticipated and the direction remains difficult to forecast, the industry appears confident that there will be more winners than losers, regardless of the path taken during the next administration,” Pharmapack stated in a press release (1).

The practical implications of the BIOSECURE ACT are expected to continue to evolve until the bill is either passed or rejected in some form. The industry, in the meantime, is already preparing for medium-term changes, such as switching discovery chemistry services to Europe and to Indian contract research organizations. In comparison, development and commercial contracts are being more widely shared, opening up new opportunities, particularly for companies investing in advanced biologics manufacturing with an eye toward lowering costs per gram.

On the Europe front, European markets are expected to drive innovation in drug delivery and packaging forward over the next 12-months. Pharmapack identified Île-de-France as a growing innovation hub for the MedTech sector in 2025, and the region will host Pharmapack Europe 2025 on January 22–23. “[The region]’s highlighted as the ideal location for start-up device and MedTech companies, thanks to its combination of funding opportunities, availability of R&D staff and, crucially, a strong base of pharma manufacturing and packaging resources,” according to the press release.

Pharmapack also emphasizes that the Île-de-France region is expected to play a significant role in both biologic device design and contract filling, based largely on the ongoing demand for GLP-1 drugs. Aseptic filling capacity is expected to be tied up in the clinical filling needs of GLP-1s, especially with generic GLP-1s soon to enter the market in 2025, which may cause delays in the clinical filling of other therapies with smaller volumes, such as oncology-targeted therapies, according to Pharmapack. “The result is that we will see biotechs widening supplier networks and potentially even Big Pharma searching for new partners for GLP-1s,” Pharmapack states in the press release. “Consequentially, contract and device filling is predicted to be a rapid growth area at Pharmapack.”

More than 6000 attendees and more than 370 exhibiting companies are expected to attend Pharmapack Europe this year. Pharmapack is seeing significant growth in participation from early stage companies as well; the conference’s Start-Up Hub is expected to host more than 20 emerging companies. In particular, there has been increasing interest from German and Swiss executives who are seeking new opportunities in development and licensing deals for device and packaging innovations.

The full results of Pharmapack’s report can be accessed on www.cphi-online.com. More information about Pharmapack Europe can be found on www.pharmapackeurope.com/en

References

1. Pharmapack Europe. Pharmapack Predictions 2025: the Good the Bad and…. the Donald 2.0. Press Release. Jan. 13, 2025.
2. Wright, T. The Good, the Bad, and the Donald. contractpharma.com, Jan. 31, 2017.