Pharmaceutical Intermediates Market By Product (Chemical Intermediates, Bulk Drug Intermediates, and Custom Intermediates), By Category, By Application, By End User - Global Industry Outlook, Key Companies (Cambrex Corporation, BASF SE., Aceto Corporation, and others), Trends and Forecast 2024-2033

These intermediates if are not pure will directly affect the quality and safety of the final drug product. In summary, the article unravels the scope and importance of the pharmaceutical intermediates market in the overall pharmaceutical industry chain since it is a critical component in the development of high-quality and effective drugs.

The Pharmaceutical Intermediates Market has grown significantly, with the global demand for APIs and intermediates increasing by over 6% annually. The global pharmaceutical production is valued at more than USD 1.2 trillion, with intermediates accounting for a large portion of this value. Countries like China and India have become key players, producing over 60% of global pharmaceutical intermediates.

The US Pharmaceutical Intermediates Market

The United States is projected to hold a value of about USD 14.0 billion in the pharmaceutical intermediate market at a CAGR of 7.9% in 2024 which is further forecasted to cross the threshold of USD 27.8 billion in 2033.

Recent trends in the US pharmaceutical intermediates market include the growing focus on sustainable production practices, the adoption of superior synthesis technologies like continuous waft production, and strategic partnerships to enhance delivery chain resilience. Companies are expanding production capacities for specialized intermediates, especially in therapeutic areas like oncology and neurology.

Regulatory approvals for brand-new centers and techniques are facilitating market growth, whilst innovations in biocatalysis and enzymatic synthesis are gaining traction for their capacity to enhance performance and decrease environmental effects. These trends show a shift in the direction of more efficient, sustainable, and resilient pharmaceutical intermediate manufacturing inside the US market.

Key Takeaways

• Market Size: This market is expected to reach a value of USD 90.4 billion by 2033 from a base value of USD 44.9 billion in 2024, at a CAGR of 8.1%.
• By Product Segment Analysis: Chemical intermediates are projected to hold a dominant position within the product segment in the pharmaceutical intermediates market as they hold 53.7%, and they hold a high portion of the market share in 2024.
• By Category Segment Analysis: In terms of category, Branded drug intermediates are projected to hold a dominant position in the pharmaceutical intermediates market as it held 73.1% of the market share in 2024.
• By Application Segment Analysis: Cardiovascular drugs are anticipated to hold a prominent position as an application of the global pharmaceutical Intermediates market as they hold a high market share in 2024.
• By End User Segment Analysis: Based on End-user, biotech, and pharma companies dominate this segment as they hold the highest market share in 2024.
• Regional Analysis: North America is anticipated to dominate the global pharmaceutical intermediates market as it holds 37.2% of the market share in 2024.

Use Cases

• Drug Synthesis: Pharmaceutical intermediates serve as critical building blocks in drug synthesis, allowing the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) utilized in various medicinal drugs for treating diseases and enhancing health effects.
• Process Optimization: Intermediates facilitate process optimization by streamlining manufacturing processes, reducing production costs, and enhancing performance in drug development and formulation.
• Quality Control: They play an essential role in ensuring quality control throughout pharmaceutical manufacturing, preserving consistency and purity of APIs and completed dosage forms to satisfy regulatory standards and ensure patient safety.
• Research and Development: Pharmaceutical intermediates aid research and development efforts by way of offering flexible chemicals for exploring new drug candidates, formulations, and treatment methods, accelerating innovation inside the pharmaceutical industry.

Market Dynamic

Trends

Increasing Demand for Specialty Drugs
The global industry's future growth advances rapidly, especially in the fields of specialty drugs that highly impact the global market of pharmaceutical intermediates. This trend is the result of the further development of the field of biotechnology and switching toward the utilization of individual approaches to treatment. Consequently, there is advancement of product manufacturing capabilities by the pharmaceutical intermediates manufacturers to cater to different needs of the various sectors in the pharmaceutical industries. Market research indicates that this tendency will persist further, hence, creating the right environment for market growth and increased size of the world’s pharmaceutical intermediates market.

Technological Advancements and Innovation
The pharmaceutical intermediates industry is experiencing changes regarding the synthetic chemistry and optimization of processes due to technological changes. This advancement leads to an increase in the production of pharmaceutical intermediates in cost cost-effective manner. A survey of the pharmaceutical market shows that constantly increasing investment in research and development by the key market players is the cause of this tendency. Advanced technologies are being incorporated into the expanded production and thus, the growth of the pharmaceutical intermediates market over the forecast period.

Growth Drivers

Rising Prevalence of Chronic Diseases
The increased incidence of chronic diseases across the world is one of the main drivers of the pharma intermediates market. Thereby increasing the usage of APIs, and consequently increasing the rates of the pharmaceutical intermediate markets. Analyzing market data, it can be stated that along with the increasing number of patients who need long-term medication, the production of pharmaceutical intermediates is predicted to grow, stimulating market revenue and the development of the global market for pharmaceutical intermediates.

Expansion of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in Emerging Markets
Pharmaceutical manufacturing intensification of the emerging economies, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and Africa is a significant factor in the growth of the pharmaceutical intermediates market. In the case of Africa, demand for API and formulation is growing rapidly which is backed by increasing investment and development in healthcare facilities. This trend is expected to bolster the market share outlook of pharmaceutical intermediates firms in these regions, thereby triggering massive market opportunities in the course of the forecast period.

Growth Opportunities

Contract Research and Manufacturing Services
Such trends such as the rising use of contract research organizations (CROs) and contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) are some of the factors that hold great growth prospects for the pharmaceutical intermediates market. Such services enable the intermediate players to grow their businesses and develop new products without having to invest heavily in the research and development arm. The corresponding analysis of the industry shows that the primary direction of this tendency is formulated in the shift towards outsourcing, which will cause rapid growth of the global revenue of pharmaceutical intermediates, particularly in the API Intermediates market.

Development of Novel Intermediates
The use of new middle products is virtually untapped and yields a high degree of market growth potential. Manufacturers of pharmaceutical intermediates are now emphasizing developing new intermediates that will be useful to the modern pharmaceutical industry. Similarly, the market research has provided information that the specific type of intermediates is expanding with new and more specialized intermediates becoming the norm. Such diversification has the potential of fuelling the growth of the pharmaceutical intermediates market by presenting new opportunities for generating revenues to the worth as well as expanding the market frontiers.

Restraints

Stringent Regulatory Requirements
The dynamics of the pharmaceutical intermediates market are expected to be a problem due to health authorities’ policies towards the same around the world. These regulations help in governing the safety of the pharmaceutical Intermediates and their efficacy once manufactured; however, it limits market growth because it takes time and more money to follow the regulations. As per several analysts, this retrain has increasing importance in areas where having approval is quite a complex procedure and this might hamper the growth of the pharmaceutical intermediates market.

High Production Costs
Prolific production costs are considered a key factor that hinders the growth of the market for pharmaceutical intermediates. The process of making pharmaceutical intermediate itself is chemically highly complicated and demands heavy capital investment in technology and highly skilled manpower. Research done on the market reveals that such high costs reduce the possibility of making acceptable profits by the pharmaceutical intermediates firms especially those in the bulk drug intermediates industry. This financial burden may slow down the growth of this market especially to the intermediate manufacturers.

Research Scope and Analysis

By Product

Chemical intermediates are projected to hold a dominant position within the product segment in the pharmaceutical intermediates market as they hold 53.7%, they hold a high portion of the market share in 2024, and are expected to show subsequent growth in the upcoming phase of 2024 to 2033. This dominance is due to their versatility, broad applicability, and fundamental role as basic building blocks in drug synthesis. 

Their wide range of synthesis routes, scalability, and cost-effectiveness make them preferred by pharmaceutical manufacturers for efficient and economical drug production. The diverse chemical structures of chemical intermediates allow for the synthesis of compounds with varying properties, enabling their use in developing drugs for different therapeutic areas. 

Their regulatory compliance, flexibility in research and development, and adaptability for both chiral and achiral compound synthesis further contribute to their prominence. With global availability and production by numerous manufacturers, chemical intermediates ensure a stable supply chain for pharmaceutical companies operating globally. While chemical intermediates dominate, it's essential to recognize that certain drugs and therapeutic areas may require more specialized intermediates and the industry often employs a combination of intermediates tailored to the unique characteristics of each drug development project.

By Category

In terms of category, Branded drug intermediates are anticipated to hold a dominant position in the pharmaceutical intermediates market as they held 73.1% of the market share in 2024 and are expected to show subsequent growth in the forthcoming period of 2024 to 2033. Pharmaceutical laws and Intellectual property protection like patents, give the Pharmaceutical companies exclusive control over innovations in medication hence a competitive advantage. 

Huge investments in research and development, accompanied by high developmental costs defeat the essence and probabilities of generic manufacturers. Based on the nature of its product, branded drugs are protected by extended patent protection measures, well-received brand identity, and Health Care Professionals as well as consumers’ confidence and loyalty. 

Other factors that prolong the dominance of branded FDI include ME, the barriers that governments set to the entry of generics, and the large amounts of money required for marketing the products. Nevertheless, over time, this opportunity may change: once patents on these products expire, they can be copied by other companies through generic production putting pressure on the pharmaceutical intermediates industries and probably changing the competitive environment of the sector.

By Application

Cardiovascular drugs are expected to hold a prominent position as an application of the global pharmaceutical Intermediates market as they hold a high market share in 2024 and are expected to show subsequent growth in the upcoming period of 2024 to 2033. Cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of death, and the majority involve lifelong treatment since they are chronic, providing a steady market for pharmaceuticals in this segment. 

Cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and thrombosis require several pharma intermediates and the availability of a broad spectrum of cardiovascular drugs helps big pharma to sell a lot of intermediates. New cardiovascular drug candidates require improved and continual research and development endeavors as a result of the increasing geriatric population and changing regulations, meaning specialized intermediates. 

As such, because primary prevention medications are dominant, the massive patient populations with risk factors, the high market value, as well as the high revenues that cardiovascular drugs will generate also support the crucial contributions of the latter to the demand for PI. Also, enhancements in drug delivery systems are contributing to the compounds of these medications, necessary intermediates for the synthesis. Altogether, the constant requirement for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases guarantees reliable and close-knit demand for intermediates in these important medications’ production.

By End User

Based on end-user, biotech, and pharma companies are anticipated to dominate this segment as they hold the highest market share in 2024 and are expected to show subsequent growth in the upcoming period of 2024 to 2033. Intermediates are extensively used in biopharma sectors mainly in the synthesis of API which are crucial substructures necessary in synthesizing intricate molecules with curative properties. Such firms may go for ‘custom synthesis’ or may directly manufacture the compounds and the bigger picture is that the large firms prefer this route and have in-house facilities for the same as it offers better control over the process. Pharmaceutical intermediates are used at the research and development stages and at the synthesis stage which is also referred to as the process development stage. 

This is why regulators impose strict measures in the production process such as good manufacturing practices or GMP as a way of guaranteeing safety and quality in the pharmaceutical products. As a result, acting as intermediate suppliers, the companies of the biopharma sector have to obtain stable partners and remain competitive in the global market. Depending on a drug’s stage in development through its launch, certain intermediates may vary, stressing the necessity to recognize and fulfill the shifting demands and issues of the pharmaceuticals’ indispensable link.

The Pharmaceutical Intermediates Market Report is segmented based on the following

By Product

• Chemical Intermediates
• Bulk Drug Intermediates
• Chiral Intermediates
• Achiral Intermediates
• Custom Intermediates

By Category

• Branded Drug Intermediates
• Generic Drug Intermediates

By Application

• Cardiovascular Drugs
• Analgesics
• Anti-inflammatory Drug
• Anti-diabetic Drugs
• Antimicrobial Drugs
• Anti-cancer Drugs
• Others

By End User

• Biotech & Pharma Companies
• Research Laboratory
• CMOs/CROs

Regional Analysis

North America is projected to dominate the global pharmaceutical intermediates market as it holds 37.2% of the market share in 2024 and is expected to show subsequent growth in the forthcoming period of 2024 to 2033. North America, especially the United States, has been dominating the overall pharma industrial global space and is doing the same in the case of the pharmaceutical intermediates market. Several factors could be attributed to North America such as being a hub for research and development with a favorable regulatory environment beginning with the FDA. The large market size, high healthcare expenditure, infrastructural development, and technological advancement are additional strengths of the region. 

The major driving forces for North America include existing strategic alliances and collaborations among different Pharmaceutical companies, many of the major companies have a global outreach, easy access to capital and investments, and sound trading outlets, all of these contributing to making it a competitive player in the international market for Pharmaceutical intermediates. Yet, it is crucial to mention that the global world is quite mobile, and other countries including European and Asian countries also have their part in pioneering new markets; also the fluctuations in geopolitical matters, restrictions, and new horizons may cause shifts in the proportion of the market share at different intervals.

Competitive Landscape

The pharmaceutical intermediates market is characterized by a diverse competitive landscape, featuring both global and regional players. Major multinational companies like Lonza Group, BASF SE, Cambrex Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Dishman Carbogen Amcis Limited dominate the industry with their extensive resources and research capabilities. Success in this market hinges on a strong emphasis on research and development, with innovation in synthesis techniques and manufacturing processes serving as key differentiators. 

Companies with a global presence enjoy a competitive edge, allowing them to tap into varied markets and respond effectively to demand fluctuations. Strategic partnerships, collaborations, and regulatory compliance are integral aspects of the competitive strategy, fostering risk-sharing, resource pooling, and adherence to industry standards.

Mergers and acquisitions are common strategies used by major companies to expand their product portfolios and gain market access. Adaptability to changing market dynamics, efficient supply chain management, and staying abreast of emerging trends are crucial for sustained competitiveness in this dynamic industry. It's important to note that the landscape is subject to continuous changes influenced by factors such as industry consolidation, technological advancements, and geopolitical developments.

Some of the prominent players in the Global Pharmaceutical Intermediates Market are

• Cambrex Corporation
• BASF SE.
• Aceto Corporation
• Interchem.
• Arkema Inc.
• Chiracon GmbH.
• Midas Pharma GmbH.
• Chemcon Specialty Chemical Pvt. Ltd.
• Dextra Laboratories Limited
• Pfizer
• Codexis Inc
• Sanofi
• Dishman Group
• Dextra Laboratories Limited
• Other Key Players

Recent Developments

June 2024

• Seagen and Pfizer: Pfizer completed its acquisition of Seagen for USD 43.0 billion. This deal significantly enhances Pfizer's oncology portfolio, giving it access to Seagen’s pioneering antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology.

May 2024

• Sanofi and Inhibrx Inc: Sanofi acquired Inhibrx Inc to expand its biologics and rare diseases pipeline. This acquisition aims to enhance Sanofi’s capabilities in developing treatments for rare diseases, leveraging Inhibrx’s robust pipeline of biologics, including potential treatments for life-threatening conditions with high unmet medical needs.
• Abbvie and Landos Biopharma Inc.: Abbvie’s acquisition of Landos Biopharma Inc. is focused on expanding its immunology and gastrointestinal disease portfolio. Landos Biopharma's novel oral therapeutic candidates, which target the gut immune barrier, are expected to complement Abbvie’s existing treatments for immune-mediated diseases.
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Alpine Immune Sciences Inc: Vertex Pharmaceuticals acquired Alpine Immune Sciences to strengthen its capabilities in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. This acquisition is aimed at accelerating Vertex’s entry into the autoimmune disease market, supported by Alpine’s expertise in protein-based therapies.

April 2024

• Gilead Sciences and Cymabay Therapeutics Inc: Gilead Sciences acquired Cymabay Therapeutics to expand its portfolio in liver diseases. Cymabay’s focus on developing therapies for rare liver diseases aligns with Gilead’s strategic interest in liver health, offering potential new treatment options for patients.
• Column Group and Ngm Biopharmaceuticals Inc: Column Group purchased Ngm Biopharmaceuticals, emphasizing innovative therapeutics for unmet medical needs. NGM Biopharmaceuticals is known for its work on endocrine and metabolic diseases, and this acquisition is expected to enhance Column Group’s investment portfolio in high-impact therapeutic areas.
• Xoma Corp and Kinnate Biopharma Inc: Xoma Corp’s acquisition of Kinnate Biopharma focuses on oncology treatments. Kinnate’s development of targeted cancer therapies will bolster Xoma’s oncology pipeline, enabling the company to offer more specialized treatments for various cancer types .

March 2024

• Bristol Myers Squibb and Karuna Therapeutics Inc: Bristol Myers Squibb completed the acquisition of Karuna Therapeutics to enhance its neuroscience division. Karuna is known for its work on treatments for neuropsychiatric disorders, and this acquisition is expected to accelerate the development of novel therapies for conditions like schizophrenia and other mental health disorders.
• Gilead Sciences and Cymabay Therapeutics Inc: Gilead’s acquisition of Cymabay reinforces its strategy to expand in liver diseases, particularly focusing on therapies for conditions such as primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). This deal provides Gilead with a promising late-stage candidate to address significant unmet needs in liver disease treatment.

February 2024

• Emed LLC and Science 37 Holdings Inc: Emed LLC acquired Science 37 Holdings to focus on decentralized clinical trials. Science 37 is a leader in virtual clinical trials, and this acquisition will enhance Emed’s capabilities in conducting remote and hybrid clinical trials, thus improving patient access and participation.
• Campbell Soup Co. and Sovos Brands Inc: Campbell Soup Co. completed its acquisition of Sovos Brands to diversify into health and wellness products. Sovos Brands’ portfolio includes products that align with consumer trends toward healthier eating, providing Campbell with new growth opportunities in the premium food segment.

January 2024

• Novo Nordisk and Dicerna Pharmaceuticals: Novo Nordisk’s strategic acquisition of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals for $3.3 billion was aimed at enhancing its RNAi platform for treating chronic diseases. This acquisition allows Novo Nordisk to integrate Dicerna’s RNA interference (RNAi) technology into its pipeline, targeting conditions such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
• Gilead Sciences and Aurinia Pharmaceuticals: While there was significant speculation about Gilead Sciences acquiring Aurinia Pharmaceuticals due to Aurinia’s lupus nephritis treatment, no formal deal was confirmed. However, the market dynamics and potential synergies from such an acquisition continue to be a point of discussion in the industry.