China CDMO: Primer on Peptide CDMOs Part 1 - Supply-side leaders differentiate in scale, cost, and technology breadth

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China CDMO: Primer on Peptide CDMOs Part 1 - Supply-side leaders differentiate in scale, cost, and technology breadth

23 July 2026

China CDMO

China CDMO: Primer on Peptide CDMOs Part 1 - Supply-side

leaders differentiate in scale, cost, and technology breadth

This report is the first in a multi-part primer series on CDMOs. We start with a supply-side Rebecca Liang, Ph.D.

+852 2123 2656 review of the peptide industry. Future reports will examine GLP-1-driven demand growth,

rebecca.liang@bernsteinsg.com peptide market sizing, and the long-term supply-demand balance.

Ellie Li A fragmented industry increasingly dominated by scaled platforms. The peptide

+852 2123 2621 CDMO landscape spans three groups: diversified CRDMOs - Thermo Fisher and WuXi ellie.li@bernsteinsg.com

AppTec among others, specialty peptide leaders - Bachem, PolyPeptide, CordenPharma,

and a long tail of emerging suppliers. Historically, peptide outsourcing was led by

specialists with deep manufacturing know-how, but the rapid growth of metabolic peptides

has increasingly favored suppliers able to deploy capital and capacity at scale. Chinese

CRDMOs have been the primary beneficiaries of the GLP-1 boom. Revenue of the top

four peptide CDMOs expanded from c.$1 Bn in 2021 to $3 Bn in 2025. WuXi AppTec's

TIDES business grew from $120 Mn to $1.7Bn, increasing market share from 11% to

54%, while Asymchem's peptide business accelerated to 124% growth in 2025 from

a much smaller base. By comparison, Bachem and PolyPeptide delivered more modest

growth of mid single digit to teens, respectively, as market growth became increasingly

concentrated in large-scale metabolic peptide programs.

Cost structures differ dramatically. There is a wide range of profitability across peptide