Lifecore Biomedical more than doubles capacity, targets GLP-1 injectables market and Big Pharma
It’s been a whirlwind transformation for Minnesota-based contract development and manufacturing organization Lifecore Biomedical over the past year and a half or so. In that time, the company has divested its remaining food businesses, brought on a new management team, and positioned itself as a pure-play sterile injectable fill-finish CDMO.
Lifecore also recently completed the installation and qualification of its high-speed, GMP-ready five-head isolator filler, designed for fill-finish activities for vials, cartridges, and pre-filled syringes, which effectively more than doubled the company’s capacity with revenue-generating potential of up to $300 million annually.
For fiscal year 2025, Lifecore’s projected revenues are $126.5 million to $130 million. The company says it is engaging in discussions with customers to take advantage of the speed and aseptic isolation benefits of the new filler, part of the CDMO’s 248,000 square feet of facilities located within two square miles in Chaska, Minnesota.
CEO Paul Josephs, who in 2024 took the reins of the company with approximately 450 employees, told Pharma Manufacturing that Lifecore is now turning its attention to business development to drive revenue and take advantage of its new capabilities and capacity.
“From a commercial standpoint, we’ve been farmers more so than hunters and we’re returning our approach to being more hunters, as it relates to driving new and impactful opportunities into our business,” Josephs said.
Stephens analyst Jacob Johnson in a note to investors late last year said the CDMO’s investment in the five-head isolator filler “now allows the company to target larger indications and companies that would typically look to larger CDMOs for capacity which would include products such as GLP-1s.”
CFO Ryan Lake, who joined the company in 2024, told Pharma Manufacturing that Lifecore’s “bread and butter” is its fill-finish business and capacity has gone from being able to produce roughly 20 million units of product to 45 million units of product.
When it comes to the red-hot GLP-1 market, Johnson believes there are at least two GLP-1 products Lifecore is actively pursuing. With a “tailwind” from GLP-1s, the EU’s Annex 1 update, and the BIOSECURE Act in the U.S., he contends that the sterile injectable market is poised for growth.
“Given a variety of tailwinds, it’s a good time to be a fill-finish CDMO,” Johnson said, which should position Lifecore for “double-digit revenue growth and margin expansion over the coming years.” The analyst noted that the company is currently “only utilizing ~20% of its fill-finish capacity” with the opportunity for “strong incremental margins” as it “continues to ramp production and leverage its fixed costs.”
While Lifecore has legacy capabilities in pharmaceutical-grade, non-animal-sourced hyaluronic acid (HA), manufacturing more than 20 commercially approved HA injectable products, Josephs described it as a “small component” of the overall market that the company is targeting. Now, the CDMO is “opening that aperture to a broader segment of the market” with “more feet on the street from a business development standpoint,” he said.
Growth strategy
Last month, Lifecore reported financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 with revenues of $32.6 million, an 8% increase compared to the prior year period, driven by higher sales from its largest CDMO customer. However, Lifecore’s ambitious business goals include a 12% revenue compound annual growth rate over the next few years.
Barrington Research analyst Michael Petusky in a note to investors last month said that Lifecore has identified 50 new business development opportunities, which includes “significant multinational pharmaceutical representation of around 30%” versus “less than 10% just a few quarters ago.”
Petusky said this “suggests that the company’s efforts at ‘elephant hunting’ are real and are starting to meaningfully show up in the business development pipeline.” The analyst also noted there are 10 late-stage projects that all have commercial approval potential within the next one to three years.
Overall, Lifecore has 25 active projects in its pipeline representing $100 million to $200 million in commercial revenue potential, according to Johnson.
“We’re seeing momentum because now it’s a new strategy,” Josephs said. “We’re calling on all large, multinational pharmaceutical companies as well as emerging specialty pharma.”
Although Lifecore is “more than capable of doing GLP-1s” and is “aggressively” pursuing the opportunities for that class of drugs, Josephs added that the company doesn’t need to “meaningfully play” in the GLP-1 market to meet its growth targets.
