Fill/finish services set to grow at annual rate of over 10%
The contract services market for biologic fill/finish will be worth $4.2bn (€3.7bn) by 2030, a report from Roots Analysis suggests.
According to the analysis, the high costs of development, complex production protocols and equipment demands for fill/finish operations means that companies producing biologics often use contract services at this stage of manufacture.
At this stage of the process, after both upstream and downstream processing has been complete, the product is at its most valuable and therefore mistakes in fill/finish can be costly.
This has seen over 115 companies worldwide set up or expand to offer fill/finish services, and little consolidation has been seen in the market, with 40% of those in the industry being identified as mid-sized businesses.
Current annual contract capacity is estimated to be 4.5 billion unit, in terms of packaging containers, and more than 40 million liters, in terms of fill volume.
However, this looks set to increase quickly, with those in the market investing in boosting capacity, including at the larger end of the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) market.
This has contributed to Roots Analysis predicting that, through to 2030, the market will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5%.
Another contributing factor to such growth is the wider development of the biologics space, which has companies with traditional focuses elsewhere looking to invest.
The report notes one area that is likely to change alongside the development of the biologics industry, which could be a shift away from fill/finish into vials.
Although this is currently the dominant receptacle for biologics, the report notes that its discussions with industry experts suggests that there will be a pivot towards self-administration devices in the future.