Pharma Contract Manufacturing is the Quiet Reshoring Engine Investors Can’t Ignore

Black Book Flash Survey of VCs, PEs, Bankers, Analysts and Influencers Reveals Q4’s Hottest Healthcare Investment

NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 1, 2025 / The hottest new healthcare investment target for Q4 2025 isn’t a flashy digital health app or AI scribe. According to a Black Book Research flash survey last week of 78 venture capital, private equity, investment banking, and healthcare technology influencer respondents, it’s pharmaceutical contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) and supply chain resilience.

62% of respondents ranked CMOs as their top healthcare investment sector for expected ROI in 2026, ahead of AI-driven care platforms, digital health apps, and revenue cycle automation. The shift reflects mounting pressure to reshore drug production and secure fragile supply chains, as governments and investors alike respond to shortages, geopolitical risk, and rising patient demand.

The Reshoring Imperative

For decades, much of the pharmaceutical industry relied on low-cost offshore production in China and India. Now, with drug shortages escalating and national security concerns mounting, policy incentives in the U.S. and EU are accelerating a bio-industrial reshoring wave.

“Reshoring is no longer a talking point, it’s the policy backbone of pharmaceutical supply security,” said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book Research, and the forthcoming “The Black Book of Reshoring” (Wiley Publishers, 2025). “CMOs are the bridge between geopolitical need and investor opportunity. They’re the vehicles through which capital, policy, and technology converge.”

Nearly half of survey respondents (48%) said CMOs with active U.S. or EU reshoring strategies are “significantly more attractive” for Q4 capital allocation.

The Global Giants in Focus

Private equity firms are concentrating firepower on billion-dollar CMO platforms with capacity to expand in North America and Europe, including:

PCI Pharma Services – backed by Kohlberg & Company and Mubadala, scaling in sterile and specialty packaging.

Catalent – spotlighted in transactions with Novo Holdings and Advent International, central to biologics and advanced therapies.

Lonza Group – Swiss-based CMO with deep capabilities in cell and gene therapy production.

Samsung Biologics – massive South Korean biologics manufacturer with global reach.

Recipharm – EQT-backed, scaling in injectables and respiratory products.

Thermo Fisher Scientific (Patheon Division) – end-to-end CDMO leveraging integration across R&D and manufacturing.

The Startup Tier: Reshoring Catalysts

Venture funds, meanwhile, are chasing high-beta startups that explicitly brand themselves as reshoring engines:

National Resilience (Resilience Bio) – backed by A16Z and ARCH, positioning as a “biomanufacturing cloud” with U.S.-based hubs.

Just – Evotec Biologics – advancing continuous biologics manufacturing in U.S. and German facilities.

Cellares – building modular, AI-driven “cell therapy factories of the future.”

Forge Biologics – Ohio-based gene therapy CDMO, backed by RA Capital and Drive Capital.

Ardena – Belgian CDMO expanding in specialty molecules as a European reshoring partner.

These startups are not only scaling advanced therapies but also positioning themselves as policy-friendly bets aligned with government reshoring agendas.

Why It Matters

Behind the headlines about AI and digital health, a quieter revolution is underway. The true bottleneck in healthcare is not software but steel, sterile labs, and supply chains. For investors, CMOs represent not just ROI potential but a geopolitical hedge. For policymakers, they offer a faster, more credible reshoring solution than waiting for pharma giants to retool their own factories.

“Private equity and venture investors are signaling that resilient, reshored supply chains are the new growth story, as essential to healthcare’s future as cloud migration or AI,” Brown added.

Investment Outlook

The survey confirms a new balance in healthcare investment priorities. Digital front doors and AI-driven revenue cycle remain active, but capital is tilting toward industrial infrastructure that underpins therapy availability, compliance, and delivery. Both the mega-platform CMOs and the disruptive startups offer compelling opportunities, though at different scales and risk profiles.

About Black Book Research
Black Book Research LLC, founded in 2004, provides impartial, vendor-agnostic survey results and competitive intelligence across the healthcare IT, services, and investment landscape. With over 3.5 million healthcare stakeholders polled since 2011, Black Book delivers the industry’s most comprehensive performance benchmarks, free of vendor influence or paid sponsorships.

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SOURCE: Black Book Research

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