Sai Life Sciences, a leading contract research, development, and manufacturing organization (CRDMO), has inaugurated Unit VI, a new dedicated veterinary active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facility at Bidar, Karnataka. The site is positioned adjacent to the company’s flagship API campus, reinforcing Sai’s growing presence in animal health manufacturing and offering global veterinary drug sponsors a purpose-built platform for API supply.
Dedicated Focus on Veterinary APIs
The establishment of Unit VI underscores the increasing recognition that animal health APIs require specialized infrastructure, regulatory pathways, and operational standards distinct from those of human pharmaceuticals. With demand for veterinary medicines continuing to rise—driven by companion animal growth, livestock productivity needs, and zoonotic disease concerns—Sai Life Sciences is positioning itself as a key partner for innovators and contract customers alike.
Sai executives emphasized that Unit VI was designed with three pillars in mind: safety, sustainability, and regulatory readiness. The close proximity to the flagship Bidar site allows the new unit to benefit from shared utilities, quality assurance frameworks, and seasoned operations teams, while still being tailored to veterinary compliance expectations. The company intends to target niche, higher-value API categories where scale-up reliability, cost control, and rapid commercialization are decisive for sponsors.
“Veterinary medicine development requires dependable partners who can deliver quality APIs at scale without compromising compliance or cost efficiency. With Unit VI, we are creating a facility that integrates global quality standards with veterinary-specific requirements, ensuring our customers have a reliable path to market,” said a Sai spokesperson.
Strengthening Global Animal Health Supply Chains
The timing of Sai’s investment coincides with an era of accelerated global spending on animal health infrastructure and innovation. In the U.S., major players are scaling capacity:
- Merck Animal Health is committing $895 million to expand its biologics manufacturing in De Soto, Kansas—with $860 million allocated to commercial manufacturing and $35 million to R&D. The project, expected to be fully operational by 2030, is projected to create over 200 jobs and bolster Merck’s vaccine and biologics capabilities.
- Zoetis, the world’s largest animal health company, recently unveiled its largest U.S. veterinary diagnostics reference laboratory at UPS Healthcare’s Labport in Louisville, Kentucky. The location leverages the city’s global air logistics hub to enable faster diagnostic turnaround times, a critical differentiator in veterinary medicine where rapid test-to-treatment cycles can improve outcomes.
These moves highlight a sector-wide shift: sponsors and service providers are not only broadening therapeutic portfolios but also investing heavily in infrastructure resilience, supply chain depth, and turnaround efficiency—areas where dedicated CRDMOs like Sai Life Sciences can play a critical supporting role.
Broader API Investment Trends
The expansion of Sai’s veterinary capacity is part of a wider trend of global API infrastructure investment, spanning both animal and human health. For instance:
- AbbVie recently announced plans for a $195 million API facility in North Chicago, with construction slated to begin in late 2025 and operations commencing in 2027. The site will enhance AbbVie’s small-molecule manufacturing capabilities in the U.S.
- At a regulatory level, the U.S. FDA’s new PreCheck program is set to reshape how drug-manufacturing sites are brought online. By introducing a two-phase pathway that emphasizes early engagement on facility design, readiness, and quality systems, the initiative is expected to reduce approval bottlenecks and strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base—a policy shift that resonates with both human and veterinary drug supply chains.
Strategic Outlook
Sai Life Sciences’ Unit VI reinforces its ambition to diversify into high-growth verticals beyond traditional human APIs, aligning with the global expansion of the veterinary sector. By building dedicated capacity, Sai not only strengthens its competitive positioning but also helps fill a crucial gap in the contract manufacturing ecosystem—where animal health sponsors often struggle to find specialized, compliant, and scalable partners.
In the long run, investments like these could support greater supply chain resilience, cost optimization, and faster time-to-market for veterinary medicines—outcomes that matter to both sponsors and the veterinarians who rely on them.
