Editor’s Note: “Every drug can be made and every disease can be treated”. Over the past twenty-five years, from a single laboratory to a global network spanning Asia, Europe, and North America; from early chemical synthesis services to an integrated platform that connects Research (R), Development (D), and Manufacturing (M); from its very first customer to thousands of partners across more than thirty countries, WuXi AppTec has never stopped moving forward to realize its enduring vision.

In tribute to the journey and in celebration of new beginnings, we look back through the eyes of our “dream-makers”: revisiting the stories of partnership that empowered global innovation, and the unique spirit that continues to guide us toward the next chapter.

At the 2025 WuXi AppTec Investor Day, an analyst suspected she had misheard a number. She raised her hand and asked, “It typically takes two years for a brand-new production plant to move from construction completion to full utilization. You just said two months. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that is correct,” replied Dr. Minzhang Chen, co-CEO of WuXi AppTec.

The answer stirred a quiet murmur among the hundreds of investors and analysts in the room, a sound that signaled recognition more than surprise. This, after all, is the company that has spent years turning “WuXi Speed” into an operating system.

Chen’s own reaction, he admits, is often one of measured wonder. Not at a single headline or a quarterly crest, but at the cumulative force of teams that grind, iterate, and deliver day after day, year after year. If he could rewind time 17 years, even the confident scientist who joined WuXi AppTec in 2008 might not have predicted how far quality, capacity and efficiency would climb.

From Scientist to Platform Builder

When Chen arrived in 2008 to lead Process R&D, WuXi AppTec’s client roster numbered around 80, and the company employed around 100 process chemists focused mainly on early research. Today, WuXi AppTec is known for an integrated, end-to-end enabling platform spanning discovery through commercial manufacturing, serving thousands of global clients with more than 3,000 process chemists, matched by advances in technical depth.

The engine behind that expansion is the company’s CRDMO model, which links Research (R), Development (D), and Manufacturing (M) into a single accountable chain. Before CRDMOs, innovator companies typically stitched together different vendors across phases and modalities, a patchwork that raised complexity and failure risk. By contrast, an integrated platform concentrates dispersed steps, simplifies decision-making, and compresses time to market.

Chen often illustrates the model’s logic with a “funnel” he shares publicly each year. The top represents early discovery; the middle spans three clinical development stages; the base is commercial manufacturing. The numbers tell the story. According to Q3 2025 financial results released on October 25, 2025, in just 12 months, from October 2024 to September 2025, WuXi AppTec’s Chemistry platform synthesized and delivered more than 430,000 new small-molecule compounds, a figure that has exceeded 400,000 annually for three consecutive years.

Those “seed” candidates flow downstream. Project counts have risen not only at the front end but more steeply in later clinical phases. From 2023 to 2025, programs in preclinical/Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 climbed to 2,889; 374; and 87, respectively, with Phase 3 growing by 42.6%; commercial (M) projects expanded by more than 37%.

In a market where late-stage work attracts many suppliers, why do programs stay and expand on one platform? “Trust,” says Chen. Between early 2024 and mid-2025, 53 drugs involved in global licensing and/or acquisition deals were supported by WuXi AppTec’s platform. When rights changed hands, the new owners kept every one of those programs at WuXi AppTec, a retention rate of 100%.

In nine other cases, the acquiring company transferred projects from other providers onto WuXi AppTec. “They were brought by our former clients,” Chen notes. “They trust our quality.”

Early Bet, Built to Customize

Debate periodically flares up over whether small molecules are outdated. Chen’s view is pragmatic: For ease of use, small molecules will remain a patient-preferred option even as modalities diversify.

He also pointed out that beyond small molecules, there is a rise of complex modalities, particularly peptides, oligonucleotides, and their conjugates. Evaluate Pharma projected in August that the global peptide market will double in five years, with GLP-1 related therapies as a major driver, while oligonucleotides could quadruple by 2030 on the strength of central nervous system, cardiovascular, and rare disease applications.

Back in 2018, WuXi AppTec quietly placed a strategic bet: Building the WuXi TIDES CRDMO platform to support peptides and oligonucleotides across discovery, development, and commercial supply. In the past 12 months alone, the TIDES team completed more than 2,000 batches, achieving a 100% success rate in Process Performance Qualification (PPQ) for 10 New Chemical Entities (NCEs) since 2019.

The more subtle advantage is supply-chain depth. Leveraging synthetic chemistry know-how, the TIDES team pushes upstream to monomer-level building blocks and can manufacture special custom fragments, shrinking timelines and costs for clients.

One case stands out. A biotech developing a cardiovascular oligonucleotide therapeutic needed a highly specific GalNAc “guide” for targeted delivery. The variant was scarce and expensive. To meet the client’s need, WuXi AppTec mobilized six teams in parallel to synthesize the custom GalNAc, optimize routes to reduce byproducts, and develop drug product processes that keep line loss under 1%.

“Given the molecule’s complexity, you need many teams and capabilities to work together. This could not be found in any other companies.” Chen says.

In just 14 months, two candidates completed all preparations for clinical trial applications. That is “WuXi Speed,” applied to a new modality.

By the first half of 2025, 69 molecules are using the TIDES platform’s API and Drug Product services, more than double the number from two years ago.

Operational Excellence, Engineered

As partners and programs multiplied, day-to-day operations faced a different challenge: resource orchestration. Chen’s metaphor is delightfully un-corporate: Tetris®. Each batch has specific needs -- different reactors, different filtration requirements, different drying conditions, just like the blocks in the classic video game.

Total site capacity is finite, but the calculation is simple: Pack more “shapes” into the board with fewer idle gaps, and utilization rises.

Years ago, a single employee could schedule one plant with 36 reactors in an Excel® spreadsheet. Today, the network spans five sites, 40 plants, and more than 800 reactors producing over 30,000 batches a year; that’s roughly 100 a day. Neither Excel® nor any off-the-shelf system can manage that complexity, because few companies have ever worked at WuXi AppTec’s scale.

So, the Company built its own real-time planning system. The impact goes well beyond convenience. With high levels of automation and digital scheduling that squeezes out idle time, the platform turns planning discipline into real capacity.

According to 2025 WuXi AppTec Investor Day, under the new system, API equipment utilization rose from 60% in 2020 to 72% in 2025. “If you factor in the downtime required for maintenance and cleaning, we are approaching the practical limit,” Chen explains.

Viewed another way, moving from 60% to 72% represents a 20% increase. With 40 production plants in operation, that gain is equivalent to adding eight more plants for clients, without pouring a single foundation.

As Chen puts it, “operational excellence” is a system, not a slogan.

And the system withstood the tests from global regulatory agencies. This March, WuXi AppTec’s two API manufacturing sites in Changzhou and Taixing passed FDA inspections with zero deficiencies. Notably, the Changzhou site underwent an unannounced inspection covering six major GMP systems and 21 FDA-approved products. The FDA completed the inspection a day ahead of schedule and found no observation.

Looking back at 2024, WuXi AppTec underwent 802 quality audits by global clients, regulators, and independent third parties, with a 100% pass rate and zero critical findings.

“Our sites are inspection ready any time.” Chen says. This simply reflects how WuXi AppTec adheres to global standards for quality, day after day, year after year.

The “Impossible Triangle,” Reframed

Looking ahead, WuXi AppTec is reinforcing capabilities where clients need them most. In Europe, the Couvet, Switzerland, site is adding spray-drying to address a clear market pain point. In the United States, the Middletown, Delaware, facility has completed its primary structure and is progressing through interior fit-out, with operations expected next year. In Asia, the first plant in the Tuas, Singapore, site is slated to be operational by 2027.

It’s not just about dots on a map. The task now, Chen says, is to infuse WuXi AppTec’s accumulated “operational excellence” at every site through redeploying experienced teams, standardizing training, and replicating best practices so new plants start up quickly and deliver consistently for global clients.

Conventional wisdom says you can pick two among quality, speed, and cost, but never all three. Chen does not agree. WuXi AppTec’s CRDMO model, combined with TIDES momentum, lean operations, and a global capacity network, aims to deliver all three simultaneously and, crucially, to keep learning so tomorrow’s baseline is higher than today’s.

He reaches for an old line from the Dao De Jing: “Great tasks begin with small steps; great achievements with careful detail.” For 25 years, WuXi AppTec’s way has been to start with the right small thing, make it precise, then make it excellent, living up to a plainspoken credo: “Doing the right thing, doing it right.”