WuXi Biologics said Wednesday that it’s still signing on new US customers despite much of the public discussion about the company concerning a bill designed to discourage biopharmas from working with the Chinese manufacturer.
Nonetheless, the company’s net and gross profits were down in the first half of the year. In particular, its net profit dropped 24% to 1.8 billion Chinese yuan ($252 million) compared to the 2.3 billion yuan ($322 million) it reported in the same period last year. Its sister company, WuXi AppTec, similarly saw its profits slide in the first half of 2024 amid talks about the Biosecure Act.
Yet WuXi Bio noted it signed 61 new projects in the six months ending in June, and half of them are with US companies. In total, WuXi Bio has 742 projects, but most of these are pre-clinical (359) and early-phase (311). It has 87 Phase 2 projects, 56 in Phase 3 and 16 commercial-stage contracts, according to a presentation.
The manufacturer’s competitors have been vocal about potentially absorbing much of WuXi’s business. But India-based CDMOs have recently tempered expectations on how quickly pharma customers will move away from China.
WuXi Bio’s revenue for the first six months of 2024 was relatively in line with last year, increasing by only 1% to 8.6 billion yuan ($1.2 billion). Much of this is due to its ADC subsidiary, WuXi XDC, which reported Tuesday that it saw a huge increase in demand in 2024, so far. North America still makes up the majority of WuXi Bio’s revenue at 58.4%, followed by Europe (21.7%) and China (16.6%).
The manufacturer said that its new site in Dundalk, Ireland, is “almost fully booked” for 2025. The Irish site finished its first process performance qualification earlier this year, and commercial manufacturing is expected to start later this year. PPQs are needed before a company can submit a BLA.
WuXi Bio is planning to construct a new pre-filled syringe manufacturing line at its site in Wuppertal, Germany, that it bought from Bayer in 2021. In May, it halted construction of a US facility but emphasized that this was not related to Biosecure.