One Level Deeper
CDMO ladder3 of 4 · finding 1 of 8
What's going on in CDMO · 1 of 82

Nobody is replacing China

They’re copying it.

COMMERCIAL LATE STAGE FTE DEVELOPMENT DISCOVERY CHINA INDIA TWO RUNGS TO GO
Sai Life2
Syngene1
Anthem0
Divi’s0
Gland0
Laurus0
Neuland0
Piramal0
“China+1” / Biosecure, times said

Across 65,700 words of management talk this quarter, “China+1” is said twice. The Biosecure Act is mentioned once — by a chief executive who introduced it with “one factor, which I forgot to mention”.

The published case for Indian pharma is that the world is leaving China. The companies are describing something else: importing the model that made China’s contract manufacturers hard to leave.

“If you look at the WuXi model… What India has seen as a first phase is discovery chemistry services and then tech transfer at late-stage commercial manufacturing. But what we are seeing now is the middle part.Krishna Kanumuri, CEO · Sai Life Sciences · 7 August 2026

His finance director: “This is how China built some of the larger CDMOs.” Neuland wants to “work like a platform partner”; Piramal calls it “land and expand”. All eight are trying to become structurally hard to remove — the thing Western legislation is meant to punish in Chinese hands.

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A sector, read end to end, and the companies as they are published. Roughly monthly. Nothing else, and one click to stop.

Not advice. Quotes are from the companies’ own earnings calls; figures from their filings.