Likes Received$1.8 Billion for a Ticket: Peptide Track Competition Intensifies, WuXi AppTec Builds Industry Moat with Time
In the global peptide CDMO arena, a new round of major reshuffling is underway.
Recently, Samsung Biologics announced it would acquire the Swiss veteran peptide CDMO company PolyPeptide for 1.46 billion Swiss francs (approximately $1.8 billion) in an all-cash deal, setting a record for the largest M&A transaction in South Korea's biopharmaceutical history. When linked with its move eight months ago to acquire GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) US production facility for $280 million, Samsung Biologics' strategic intent has become clear: trading capital for time. By investing heavily to bring PolyPeptide into its fold, its core objective is to forcefully enter the rapidly expanding peptide track, thereby precisely completing its "new molecule" business puzzle alongside antibodies and ADCs.
When latecomers need to spend huge sums and endure the lengthy process of private integration just to buy their way into the peptide drug R&D outsourcing market, people realize more clearly that as the "front-runner," WuXi AppTec (603259.SH/2359.HK) had entered the field early and secured a favorable position.
Going back to 2011. At that time, GLP-1 had not yet become a phenomenal track, but WuXi AppTec had already laid out a forward-looking layout in the peptide field, launching the integrated WuXi TIDES platform in 2018. The total volume of solid-phase synthesis reactors for peptides in WuXi TIDES increased from 6,000 liters in 2022 to 41,000 liters in 2024, exceeding 100,000 liters by the end of 2025, with plans to expand to 130,000 liters in 2026, achieving stepwise growth in peptide capacity; meanwhile, three brand-new TIDES workshops at the Taixing and Singapore bases are also under simultaneous construction. Relying on this platform, WuXi AppTec has 打通 ed (connected) the "integrated, end-to-end" CRDMO service capability from drug discovery, CMC development to commercial production.
Capacity ramp-up is not simply stacking equipment, but the result of being deeply bound with process refinement and project experience. As of early 2026, WuXi AppTec has supported the R&D of 24 GLP-1 drugs, 15 of which have entered Phase II and Phase III clinical stages, accounting for about one-quarter of the global clinical-stage GLP-1 pipeline. In the first quarter of 2026, the number of TIDES D&M service clients and the number of service molecules increased year-on-year by 28% and 59%, respectively, with extremely rich project reserves. Continuously expanding capacity will powerfully drive this business toward a new hundred-billion milestone.
Returning to the acquisition itself, it validates that the gold content of the peptide track continues to increase. According to current mainstream market judgment, the global peptide drug market size will be around $150 billion by 2030. Besides weight loss and blood sugar reduction, peptide therapies are also rapidly penetrating more therapeutic areas such as oncology and rare diseases. This also reminds all participants that multi-dimensional competition in related fields is upgrading.
As the peptide track welcomes industrial upgrading from R&D to large-scale manufacturing, capital can buy capacity and technology, but it cannot buy the efficiency advantages and scale barriers formed by over ten years of forward-looking layout. These gaps ultimately have to be chased through time.
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