Custom Chemicals

Custom chemicals—the business of companies making chemicals to special order for other companies— is about to get a boost to new levels of growth. To meet the challenge, U.S. fine chemicals firms that have lagged behind the leaders are adding custom chemicals capacity of the quality needed for drug production. And fine chemicals companies in all countries continue to fortify their technology portfolios with new chemistries. Some of these new chemistries come from the companies' own research. But the number of marketable methods developed at universities is also increasing. Average annual growth rates for custom chemicals have ratcheted up through the 1990s, as many drug company managers have realized they can get greater returns by investing in research and marketing than in production. It makes good business sense, they've found, to pay custom producers to make their intermediates. But the new growth engine for custom chemicals in the first decade of the new millennium will ...