During CPHI China 2026, PharmaBlock Sciences (Nanjing), Inc. unveiled its strategic positioning as a "Green and Intelligent Chemistry Engine for Next-Generation Therapies."

Within the current context of the CDMO industry, the company is attempting to integrate molecular building blocks, AI molecular design, green process scale-up, DS/DP synergy, and global delivery capabilities into a unified CRDMO platform focused on complex molecules.

Next-generation therapies such as ADCs, PROTACs, peptides, oligonucleotides, and AOCs continue to gain momentum. The challenges for innovative drug projects are extending from target discovery to encompass molecular engineering, CMC development, quality systems, and commercial supply. For innovative pharmaceutical companies, the value of an external partner hinges on its ability to identify molecular risks at an earlier stage and carry that assessment through subsequent development and production.

A recent report characterized the current CDMO sector as experiencing a "sustained recovery but with significant divergence," noting that GLP-1/TIDES demand continues to support order growth, while ADC pipelines are active but their commercial visibility varies widely. Applying this assessment to PharmaBlock Sciences highlights the challenge of how a company can leverage its traditional strength in small-molecule chemistry to enter the development and manufacturing of more complex molecular forms.

From Building Blocks to Developable Molecules

PharmaBlock's earliest core asset was its molecular building blocks. Historically, this capability primarily served the drug discovery phase, providing clients with diverse chemical fragments and synthetic starting points. In the context of next-generation therapies, the value of building blocks needs to extend further forward into molecular design and further back into considerations of synthetic feasibility, scalability, and developability.

At the launch event, the company introduced its self-developed, end-to-end AI drug discovery platform, ZoeStarTM. This platform leverages a library of over 200,000 molecular building blocks to construct a virtual chemical space and recommends candidate molecules under the constraints of physical building block availability and synthetic feasibility. Its practical significance lies in addressing the risk that early efficiency gains from AI-generated structures could be eroded during the CMC phase if they are divorced from considerations of synthetic pathways, impurity control, and process scale-up.

A recent analysis on the impact of AI on China's CDMO industry suggested that AI-driven drug discovery will propel more complex molecules into the validation phase. AI-generated molecules tend to have higher average molecular weights, more chiral centers, and higher synthetic accessibility scores, with the proportion of molecules requiring more than five synthetic steps also increasing. The analysis concluded that CDMOs capable of translating AI-designed molecules into tangible, testable candidates would benefit in terms of both volume and pricing.

This is precisely why PharmaBlock emphasizes the "AI + Building Blocks" combination: AI expands the search space, while the building blocks translate search results into executable chemical outcomes. Whether this system ultimately converts into orders depends on experimental validation efficiency within client projects and subsequent development conversion.

The Industrialization Hurdle for Complex Molecules Lies in Scale-Up

The barriers for next-generation therapies often emerge after proof of concept.

ADCs require stable linkers and controlled conjugation, PROTACs involve handling higher molecular weights and more complex conformations, peptides deal with non-natural amino acids and synthesis efficiency, while oligonucleotides impose stricter demands on impurity profiles, purification, and quality systems.

Ultimately, all these issues converge on CMC.

PharmaBlock's presentation heavily featured its manufacturing-side capabilities, including continuous flow, fixed-bed technology, enzymatic catalysis, digital development and production, and green operations. The company disclosed that its continuous flow and fixed-bed platforms have accumulated experience from nearly a thousand projects, with some achieving ton-scale production. For example, fixed-bed hydrogenation using a 10-liter unit can achieve sustained output equivalent to traditional large-volume batch reactions while reducing in-process material hold-up.

The value of these capabilities is primarily manifested in scaling up complex reactions. The precise heat and mass transfer, residence time control, in-line monitoring, and engineering modeling enabled by continuous flow can improve safety, stability, and quality consistency during the scale-up of high-risk reactions. For a next-generation therapy CRDMO platform, green manufacturing also connects to ESG considerations, cost control, and scalable production.

Peptide drugs provide an external reference point. It is projected that the global peptide CDMO market will grow at a compound annual rate of approximately 19% from 2025 to 2036, with global anti-obesity drug demand for peptide APIs reaching around 79,000 kilograms by 2030. Following the scale-up of peptide API demand, GMP compliance, manufacturing costs, and capacity execution will become the real constraints within the supply chain.

Integrated CRDMO Tests Knowledge Transfer

PharmaBlock repeatedly emphasized the concept of integrated CRDMO during the launch. This concept should not be understood merely as the physical combination of API and drug product capabilities; the more critical aspect is whether the knowledge of process, analytics, quality, and project management can be transferred continuously.

As a project progresses from PCC to IND, and then from IND to NDA and commercial supply, the route, impurities, analytical methods, quality standards, and regulatory documentation undergo continuous iteration. If there are repeated handovers between different stages, technology transfer and subsequent rework can erode the efficiency gained in early development.

At the event, Dr. Shanbao Yu, Vice President of PharmaBlock, noted that DS/DP synergy helps reduce redundant technology transfers and late-stage rework while enhancing data integrity and quality consistency.

Dr. Yuchuan Gong, Head of Small Molecule Drug CMC at BeiGene, Ltd., also shared details of their collaboration. The partnership between BeiGene and PharmaBlock extends from the drug discovery stage through CMC development to commercial supply, involving molecular building blocks, key starting materials, continuous flow processes, continuous hydrogenation, and mechanism- and data-driven R&D.

This case illustrates that platform capabilities require validation through long-term project relationships; a single technical label cannot substitute for continuous delivery within client projects.

Visibility in the CDMO sector is increasingly driven by late-stage and commercial projects, with the weight of the early-stage financing environment diminishing. This assessment applies to all CRDMO companies. No matter how comprehensive the platform narrative, it ultimately must translate into quality, the proportion of commercial projects, and order conversion.

Global Delivery Capability Determines Client Reach

PharmaBlock also placed significant emphasis on globalization and sustainability capabilities in this strategic launch. The company stated it has established a global R&D center in Nanjing, with its Zurich, Switzerland base serving as a European R&D support and warehousing/logistics hub. Its West Chester and Hatfield, Pennsylvania bases in the U.S. are positioned to be close to North American client needs, while production bases in Zhejiang and Shandong provinces handle clinical to commercial production. In 2025, revenue from overseas markets accounted for over 72% of its total.

As drug molecules become increasingly complex, the scarce capabilities within the industry also become more specific: transforming complex molecules into products that are developable, scalable, approvable, and sustainably supplied. For CRDMO enterprises, this is set to become the main battlefield for competition in the next phase.