Formulation Development Outsourcing Market Report 2026

The formulation development outsourcing market size has grown strongly in recent years. It will grow from $32.32 billion in 2025 to $35.45 billion in 2026 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7%. The growth in the historic period can be attributed to increasing pharmaceutical r&d complexity, rising number of drug candidates in pipelines, growing demand for specialized formulation expertise, expansion of contract research partnerships, increasing regulatory scrutiny in drug development.

The formulation development outsourcing market size is expected to see rapid growth in the next few years. It will grow to $53.3 billion in 2030 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.7%. The growth in the forecast period can be attributed to increasing demand for biologics and complex formulations, rising outsourcing by emerging pharma companies, expansion of personalized medicine development, growing adoption of advanced formulation technologies, increasing focus on accelerated time-to-market. Major trends in the forecast period include increasing outsourcing of complex drug formulations, rising adoption of quality by design approaches, growing demand for injectable and specialized dosage forms, expansion of scale-up and technology transfer services, enhanced focus on regulatory-compliant formulation development.

The increasing demand for drugs is anticipated to drive the expansion of the formulation development outsourcing market in the coming years. Drugs refer to substances used for various purposes, including medical treatment, disease prevention, symptom relief, or recreation. Formulation development outsourcing plays a vital role in drug development by supporting the advancement of biopharmaceuticals and innovative drug delivery systems, accelerating development timelines, and offering cost-effective solutions for pharmaceutical companies, among other benefits. For example, in April 2025, Eurostat, a Luxembourg-based government agency, reported that in 2024, EU exports of medicinal and pharmaceutical products rose by 13.5% compared to 2023, reaching $316.38 billion (€313.4 billion). During the same period, imports showed only a slight increase of 0.5%, totaling $112.7 billion (€119.7 billion). Therefore, the rising demand for drugs is contributing to the growth of the formulation development outsourcing market.

Major companies operating in the formulation development outsourcing market are concentrating on creating innovative solutions, such as AI-powered generative cloud platforms, to address the growing demand for faster drug discovery, improved molecular design, and more efficient R&D processes. Generative AI cloud platforms use pre-trained machine learning models and high-performance computing to automate and enhance complex activities in drug formulation and discovery, delivering notable advantages over traditional computational chemistry and manual screening approaches by enabling rapid protein structure prediction, molecule generation, and data-driven optimization at scale. For example, in March 2023, NVIDIA, a US-based software technology company, introduced BioNeMo Cloud, a generative AI service within its AI Foundations suite aimed at accelerating life sciences research, drug discovery, and protein engineering. The platform provides researchers with access to customizable, pre-trained AI models that can be fine-tuned using proprietary data to support tasks such as target identification and molecular design through cloud APIs or a web browser interface. This cloud-based platform offers optimized generative AI workflows for protein structure prediction, docking, and molecule generation, helping reduce the most time-intensive stages of drug development compared to traditional in-house computational methods and manual experimentation, and has been adopted by organizations such as Amgen and several biotech startups to enable faster, data-driven innovation.

In April 2024, CoreRx, Inc., a US-based contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), acquired Societal CDMO Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Through this acquisition, CoreRx intends to strengthen its formulation development and manufacturing capabilities, broaden its service portfolio from early-stage development to commercial-scale manufacturing, and address the growing demand from pharmaceutical clients for integrated development-to-manufacturing outsourcing services. Societal CDMO Inc. is a US-based firm that focuses on complex formulation development and manufacturing for small-molecule drugs, providing services that span from early-phase development to commercial production.

Major companies operating in the formulation development outsourcing market include Syngene International Ltd., Aizant Drug Research Solutions Private Limited., Catalent Inc., Intertek Group plc, Recipharm AB, SGS S.A., Lonza Group AG, Eurofins Scientific SE, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, Charles River Laboratories International Inc., Emergent Biosolutions Inc., IRISYS LLC, Piramal Pharma Limited., Biocon Limited., Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd., Quotient Sciences Ltd., Almac Group, Patheon, Evonik Industries AG, Metrics Contract Services, Aenova Group, Fareva Group, Vetter Pharma International GmbH, Aesica Pharmaceuticals, WuXi AppTec, Formosa Laboratories Inc., Aptuit LLC, ProPharma Group, Laurus Labs Limited

North America was the largest region in the global formulation development outsourcing market in 2025. The regions covered in the formulation development outsourcing market report are Asia-Pacific, South East Asia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, Africa. The countries covered in the formulation development outsourcing market report are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Spain.

The formulation development outsourcing market includes revenues earned by entities by providing services such as ingredient sourcing, stability studies, analytical testing, and regulatory support. The market value includes the value of related goods sold by the service provider or included within the service offering. Only goods and services traded between entities or sold to end consumers are included.

The market value is defined as the revenues that enterprises gain from the sale of goods and/or services within the specified market and geography through sales, grants, or donations in terms of the currency (in USD unless otherwise specified).

The revenues for a specified geography are consumption values that are revenues generated by organizations in the specified geography within the market, irrespective of where they are produced. It does not include revenues from resales along the supply chain, either further along the supply chain or as part of other products.

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