With CPHI 2025 behind us, the Bora Pharmaceuticals team is reflecting on the industry buzz and connections made in Frankfurt. We saw a strong turnout of highly engaged attendees throughout the conference, continuing the growing momentum of Bora’s CDMO division. “It has been an amazing week at CPHI, and I am so energized. I think we’ve met with about 200 clients, and I haven’t met an unhappy one yet,” said J.B. Agnus, chief commercial officer at Bora Pharmaceuticals.
In addition to fostering new opportunities for collaboration, our time at CPHI 2025 also illuminated some of the major trends shaping today’s CDMO landscape. Here, we’ll outline our three biggest takeaways from CPHI 2025 and what they mean for CDMOs and sponsors heading into 2026.
- With Global Supply Chains Shifting, Collaboration is More Vital Than Ever
The conversation around tariffs, geopolitics, and supply chain localization continues to reshape how drugmakers and CMDOs approach their operations. Many are reassessing the balance between global efficiency and regional resilience, recognizing that a traditional global model may no longer offer the stability patients and partners depend on.
For CDMOs aiming to thrive in a changing industry, this shift underscores the importance of building flexible, multi-region supply networks that can withstand disruption while maintaining continuity. In an increasingly complex world, collaboration across borders and strong networks within regions have become strategic necessities for ensuring reliability, responsiveness, and long-term partnership success.
- Partnership, Not Procurement
Bora endorses an approach that favors strong, bidirectionally advantageous partnerships with sponsors over short-term, transactional engagements. To truly advance life-changing therapies, CDMO and pharma leaders must foster a more collaborative ecosystem where working relationships aren’t just about capacity or cost—they’re about transparency and shared problem-solving. In short, true partnership means aligning priorities, not just timelines.
At CPHI, we heard both the call for a new focus on partnership, as well as big-picture ideas on how to nurture more collaborative relationships. This shift requires mutual trust and open communication around data, risk, and long-term strategy. It also means viewing technical expertise, regulatory insight, and operational flexibility as shared assets that drive collective success. In an environment where innovation is accelerating and supply chain pressures persist, the most successful collaborations are those built on partnership models that empower both sides to adapt, innovate, and deliver with confidence.
- AI is Amplifying the Industry
AI is dominating the conversation across many industries, and CPHI made it clear that pharma is no exception. “We’ve had a lot of discussions around what AI is going to be doing for the industry and how it can solve some of the challenges and help to amplify our workforces so that they can better serve patients and our partners,” said J.D. Mowery, president of Bora’s CDMO business.
While AI is not a ‘magic bullet’ for all challenges facing today’s CDMOs, we at Bora are focused on AI enablement and the major practical implications for helping us work smarter and better in service of getting needed therapies to patients.
From predictive quality control tools to digital twins that facilitate seamless process optimization, and even smarter scheduling to better manage production capacity, leveraging AI can help CDMOs amplify human expertise and accelerate timelines for partners.
Looking Ahead to 2026
These insights from CPHI 2025 are setting the tone for progress into the new year. It’s clear that 2026 will bring a new focus on supply chain resilience amid dynamic geopolitical changes, and that strong partnership models and adoption of AI technologies will help CDMOs rise to the challenge of serving partners and patients. With recent investments unlocking new capacity for our partners, Bora is ready to continue the momentum.
