GVK Bio continues to see growth tailwinds for 2020 thanks to a ‘crescendo of factors’

China-US trade challenges has led to de-risking by pharma companies.

During the past few years, the company has quickly consolidated its customer base in discovery and research services, with a subsequent positive impact on development services – which are now the fastest-growing part of the company.

Manni Kantipudi, Chief Executive Officer, added: “In the last year we have seen record revenues and teen figure growth for the company. But what is interesting is that whilst our research services – for which we are still best known – are growing at twice the market rate, it’s in development services that we are seeing growth running at three times the industry average.”

The company attributes its recent successes to robust regulatory standards and trust built up by pharma companies in the last few years – GVK Bio is now working with customers on some 18 compounds in commercial or late-stage development. Its discovery and development pipeline features more than 400 customers and over 60 molecules in various stages of clinical development.

“While we continue to benefit from our existing research services and our customers are increasingly staying with us now into development, we are also benefiting from wider macro market conditions, and seeing new customers approach us. Over the past year, there has been an influx of interest from Western life sciences firms, looking to diversify their discovery and development services outside of China to mitigate risk. This is in part due to trade tensions, but also due to tightening regulations and safety-related plant closures in China. The resulting disruption in the global supply chain, be it in discovery or development, has led to increasing interest in geographically diverse sourcing strategies, and GVK BIO, with its proven track record, has been a big beneficiary. So when you add this trend to the rise in outsourcing across pharma and the increasing virtualization of biotechs, we are bullish about our growth prospects through 2020 and beyond,” added Mr Kantipudi.

The company has also recently invested in expanding its biologics footprint in its San Francisco bio development subsidiary, Aragen Biosciences. Here, its newly commissioned suites support cell line development and GMP cell banking, in addition to existing capabilities across bioresearch.

“Our customers are always looking to reduce the time taken from discovery through to launch. By integrating our discovery and development efforts, GVK Bio is significantly reducing times for tech transfer, allowing our customers to expedite their clinical development efforts. Quality, delivery, and value are the three pillars around which we have built GVK BIO, with the sole purpose of accelerating our customer's R&D. We have no competing interests. This clear business model, and our success to date, continues to make us an attractive 'Partner of Choice' for both big pharma and biotechs worldwide.” concluded Mr Kantipudi.