Piramal aims for global market leadership in antibody drug conjugates

India’s Piramal Enterprises' (BSE: PEL) Pharma Solutions division, a leader in contract development and manufacturing (CDMO), has set a target of becoming the market leader in antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) contract commercialization over the next five years.

This is based on its focused investments at its current site in Grangemouth, UK, and its recent acquisition of Coldstream – a specialized ADC fill/finish site, in Kentucky, USA. Piramal’s shares rose 2.5% to 891.90 rupees by late afternoon trading.

The company sees the market for commercial ADCs accelerating over the next few years and a steady increase in number of potential drug targets entering into the clinical phase. Piramal expects about eight drugs to move into its commercial production by 2020 which is a significant jump considering it only manufactures one commercial product today. The CDMO suggests that despite the increase in development targets for ADCs, the global contract manufacturing sector still remains significantly under resourced with only a handful of players with experience and even less with the required regulatory accreditations.

Piramal is now in its fifth year of commercial production on the first ever commercial ADC in the market and is using this landmark to look ahead five-years to cement its position as a leader in manufacturing of ADCs. Over the last decade, Piramal has gradually expanded its internal teams and has nearly 150 ADCs specialists across its global sites.

ADCs situation mirrors that of MAbs

There are currently two commercialized ADCs on the market and Vivek Sharma, chief executive of Pharma Solutions, Piramal Enterprises, commented: “the situation with ADCs mirrors what happened when monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) first started to commercialize. At present, very few CMOs have the facilities or, just as crucially, the experience to develop them. At the moment there are only two CMOs, including ourselves, which are leading the charge in the commercial manufacturing of ADCs. Piramal is targeting winning at least one in every two commercial contracts coming to market over the next few years”.

Piramal views the acquisition of Coldstream’s fill finish site earlier this year as the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle and is now bullish about its prospects in the market.

Research on ADC targets shows that there will be at least a further 50 entering clinical work by 2020 - over the next few years it is likely there will be a wave of consolidations within the CDMO sector to acquire technology. Vivek Sharma comments: “We have been in the ADC market for over 10 years, and it is an expertise we have built both organically and inorganically. We see the next five years as an exciting time for the ADC market and it will possibly have a sizeable contribution in the total Biological CMO market".