Scaling For The GLP-1 Revolution: Meeting Global Injectable Demand

By Miguel Ángel Ortega Sánchez

The rapid rise of GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), alongside emerging therapies targeting the GIP and amylin pathways, has created a profound manufacturing challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. Originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, these therapies are now being actively investigated for a much broader range of indications, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders. This expansion in clinical scope has driven an unprecedented surge in global demand — one that increasingly mirrors, and in some cases rivals, the scale of historic blockbuster drugs.

Until recently, pharmaceutical manufacturing strategies were moving decisively toward personalized and precision therapies, with an emphasis on small-batch production. Manufacturing facilities were designed accordingly, prioritizing flexibility, modular layouts, and rapid changeover to support complex, low-volume products. The resurgence of demand for high-volume, injectable biologics has disrupted this trajectory, exposing a mismatch between existing capacity and current market needs.

As R&D investment and internal resources are increasingly absorbed by intensive clinical development programs, many pharmaceutical companies are turning to contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) to deliver the efficiency, speed, and cost control required for large-scale production. In doing so, the industry is moving beyond transactional supplier models toward deeper, long-term strategic partnerships that can support both near-term scale-up and future pipeline evolution.

For CDMOs, this shift brings its own set of challenges. They must now operate at the intersection of two competing demands: maintaining the flexibility needed for small-batch, high-complexity manufacturing, while simultaneously enabling reliable, large-scale production of injectables — often under increasingly stringent regulatory scrutiny. Successfully balancing these requirements has become a defining capability for CDMOs seeking to remain relevant and competitive in the evolving biopharmaceutical landscape.