India-based Neuland Laboratories announced in March 2026 it would be opening a commercial-scale peptide manufacturing facility later in the year. The first of four planned modules is the result of a $30 million investment by the company.

At the 2026 Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT) Week in New York, Contract Pharma spoke to Neuland’s Saharsh Davuluri. Effective April 1, Davuluri becomes the Chief Executive Officer of the company founded by his father.

Davuluri explains Neuland has been in peptide manufacturing since well before recent, rabid interest in glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists. Here, he looks back at when Neuland got into that field, and how it plans to adjust to evolving times.

Contract Pharma: Let’s start by putting your new investment in Hyderabad in context of the current state of the industry. How will such an investment and expansion help meet global demand?

Saharsh Davuluri: It’s a very interesting time for a company like Neuland to be in the CDMO space. There are a few interesting trends. One, we see the geopolitical factors at play. There is talk of regionalization. There has been China Plus One. Also, the recent Middle Eastern crisis again pointing out supply chain risks [and] the vulnerabilities around supply chain disruptions. So that’s one broad theme that I think is interesting to talk about from the business context.

I think about the way the landscape of drug development has been changing. It’s not just about small molecules [and] biologics, but it’s also about the new modalities. How are CDMOs embracing the changes happening around the drug development landscape? And what is Neuland doing on that front?

The other element is the role of Big Pharma versus biotech, and what dynamics are at play there. And how are CDMOs like Neuland trying to address opportunities on both sides of the aisle?

CP: You are planning four manufacturing modules in total. As such, your existing number of commercial products may fly under the radar. Take us through the journey of how you built that portfolio.

Davuluri: It goes back to the genesis of Neuland. My father started Neuland as a generic API [active pharmaceutical ingredient] producer. We are one of those companies who never really harbored the idea of being an end-to-end service provider. We always saw ourselves as an API manufacturer.  And what started off in our journey as off-patent generic API production, we slowly progressed into new chemical entities.

That’s how Neuland’s journey has progressed over time. It has resulted in us always having very strong commercial manufacturing experience. Today, we produce close to 70 APIs commercially.  Most of these are supplied to the U.S. market. Therefore, we are perhaps one of the FDA’s most familiar manufacturers.

And the number of new chemical entities as part of this portfolio has been gradually increasing. I think we have close to 15 today that are part of this portfolio. This is something that has been a core part of Neuland’s identity.

It is also one of the reasons why all our investments, including our recent investments in peptides, are geared toward commercial manufacturing.  We don’t see ourselves branching into becoming a drug discovery services provider or a one-stop shop. We would rather see ourselves becoming a more diversified manufacturing organization. Our growth in the last 15 years is largely thanks to our commercialization of novel chemical entities.

CP: It seems in the last one to two years, GLP-1s are an area everyone has been giving attention to. How do you connect that trend to the investments you are or will be making?

Davuluri: Peptides as a space has really grown on us. Neuland’s journey in peptides started about 16 years ago. We recruited a renowned peptide scientist from the U.S. and had him set up facilities for us back in India. The operation was largely small-scale, but we started with the organic layers and we started making core peptide building blocks [like] amino acid derivatives, pseudoproleins. We got into the business of making these building blocks and selling them to peptide CDMOs.

We then slowly started making more advanced versions of these building blocks. From dipeptides, we started making these peptide fragments, which were three to five amino acids, six amino acids. Some of these fragments had to be made under GMP [good manufacturing practice] because they were all designated as starting materials.

Peptides were largely seen as therapeutics for chronic ailments, maybe hormonal medical issues, oncology to a certain extent. There were some peptides like exenatide, which was an amylin peptide, which was used in diabetes. But peptides were not really used for metabolic diseases. Definitely not for weight loss. When the slow emphasis on weight loss came in, that’s when the floodgates toward these GLP-1s opened up. But those have been occurrences in the last seven to eight years. Neuland’s been in this space for 16 years.

So it was very interesting for us to see the explosion. When we first made presentations to our board, we [said peptide manufacturing was] a $1 to $2 billion market space. I was told recently it’s closer to $10 billion. With more GLP-1s getting in, I think it’s going to be a lot more.

As a matter of fact, it’s not just GLP-1s. I think there are a lot of other peptide classes … which also are providing different kinds of therapeutics. It’s no longer just for weight loss.

One of the biggest challenges, and why peptides were not so widely used earlier, is because the constraint was always manufacturing peptides at scale. The largest peptides were products like leuprolide, which was [approximately] 100 kilo scale per year. As these GLP-1s started picking up volume, a lot of companies and researchers started investing more in creating scalable technologies.

Neuland’s been able to sit ringside and observe those trends. We’ve been able to embrace a lot of that knowledge and internalize that. Today, more companies are getting into peptides because it’s no longer challenging to make peptides at a metric-ton scale. It is no longer challenging to make peptides at a cost of good less than $100 a gram. That was not the case earlier, and we have the GLP-1s to thank for that.

From a patient perspective, more and more peptides will be developed, not just for weight loss, but [also] for other indications. Johnson & Johnson recently announced the approval of a psoriasis drug that is a peptide. A few more are in the advanced clinical pipeline as well.

Connecting that to the Neuland investment, the potential of peptides was very obvious for the past five or six years. We were waiting for the right opportunity to make the Investment. As we started seeing commercial success from our small-molecule business, we were making long-term plans. This was to see where else Neuland should focus on, and where we should deploy capital. The first logical step was peptides, because of all the time we had invested.

So, Neuland has always been making peptide fragments at large scale. However, we have not been able to make peptide APIs. This new investment, for which the [first module] is a $30 million commitment, is helping us create a large-scale peptide API facility. The idea is to eventually build a full, modular facility. If the pipeline continues to evolve the way we expect, we should be deploying more capital into creating this larger facility in the next few years.

CP: Anytime a company like Neuland makes an investment, it’s not only about facility expansion or new equipment. It’s also about growing your workforce. What are your strategies for retaining talent—to develop the science and then, have the scientists to move it forward?

Davuluri: As a CDMO, we get into more complex spaces. It’s very important to have the right talent engaged, not just for development in R&D, but also for manufacturing. That’s where there is a constant need for building a talent pipeline, to make sure there’s a lot of emphasis on training, and also creating a pool of scientists [and] technical specialists.

Building a large facility requires a different kind of talent, because peptide facilities have different kinds of unit operations. You have pieces of equipment like lyophilizers, prep HPLCs [high-performance liquid chromatography units], and SPPS [solid-phase peptide synthesis] reactors. These are not typical to the small-molecule environment. [It’s important] to have people who can not only operate them but also be able to manage productivity while maintaining compliance at scale.

You might not find the right people right away, but it is important to train people and create an environment where you’re able to retain this this kind of talent.

This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.