This year’s CPHI marked the formal debut of Meribel Pharma Solutions, the newly consolidated European contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) that CEO Bruce Vielle described as, “a proud opportunity to show what we are able to do.”
The UK-based firm, created from several regional manufacturing sites across Europe, is betting on agility, diversification and technical depth to counter the scale and investment power of larger rivals such as Recipharm and Catalent.
Positioning itself as “Europe’s agile CDMO,” Meribel aims to combine the flexibility of a multi-site network with the reliability of unified quality standards.
“If you look at our entire portfolio, we are generating €275m in sales today across a network of 11 sites, Bruce Vielle told 24/7 BioPharma. “Our biggest customer is, let’s say, €12m – €15m and our biggest product is €10m.
“With around 300 active customers, our strength is agility,” Bruce Vielle said. “We specialise in small and medium production runs, allowing us to respond quickly to client needs.”
This agility, he noted, is not only operational but cultural, a customer-centric mindset built on transparency, co-development and trust, which Meribel sees as a key differentiator in today’s CDMO landscape.
Leadership knowhow
Vielle brings over a decade of leadership experience in pharma manufacturing and CDMOs. Before joining Meribel, he was chief executive of Synerlab Group and earlier held senior roles as Industry and Quality Group Director at Vetoquinol and Plant Director at Unither Pharmaceuticals.
His emphasis on Meribel’s agility taps into the industry’s preference for flexible partners amid supply chain uncertainty and regulatory scrutiny. That flexibility is reflected in how Meribel is channelling its investment and technical resources into three core growth areas.
“Our first area of strong growth is pharmaceutical development,” explained Bruce Vielle. “When clients bring us an API, we can manage the full development process, from formulation and pre-clinical testing to GMP manufacturing for early clinical phases. This segment of the market is expanding by about 8–11% per year, and it’s a key focus for us.”
He added that two other areas were gaining momentum: sterile multidose manufacturing, bolstered by a newly acquired ophthalmic line designed to produce preservative-free products, and lyophilization, or freeze-drying, a technology increasingly used for biologics and vaccines.
Industry investments
The strategy echoes similar investments made across the sector with Thermo Fisher Scientific stepping up investment in its Italian sites to boost biologics fill-finish capacity.
Meanwhile France’s Delpharm is expanding its injectable and aseptic operations to support the growing outsourcing pipeline from mid-sized pharma clients.
“We are just beginning the journey to synergize the network together,” Bruce Vielle acknowledged. “We had the first quality leadership meeting this year and we’ll build all our quality management system centrally. It’ll also begin the discovery phase and the selection phase of a new quality management system (QMS) that will be implemented in 2027.”
The planned rollout of a unified QMS across 11 sites will be key to delivering consistency, a critical differentiator in a sector where compliance missteps can be costly.
“There is all the investment to maintain or exceed the level of performance and quality level that are demanded by markets,” Vielle said, citing upcoming compliance with the EU’s revised Annex 1 for sterile manufacturing as a “huge topic for us.”
The company’s next priority is capacity expansion, notably in sterile manufacturing and lyophilization. “We would like to reinforce our development capabilities, and to expand both our lyophilization sites and our sterile operations,” Bruce Vielle said.
Business development
Meribel’s alignment as a pan-European partner is part of a measured strategy designed to capture business from emerging biotech firms and larger pharma groups seeking specialised support.
“Today we are able to target the whole panel of customers, from startups coming to us through our development centre to small, mid-sized, and larger pharma groups that want to transfer to us certain products in order to focus on other activity,” Bruce Vielle explained.
That breadth, he points out, reinforced Meribel’s customer-centric model, where open, transparent communication was central to building strong, long-term partnerships.
“Sometimes customers are able to help us in some technical issues,” added Bruce Vielle. “But really, communication and how strong we are communicating with our customer is key for us.
“And obviously… we want to achieve a high level of performance, whatever in quality and in delivery, because we think that this is more than a given for this market.”
Looking towards the future, Bruce Vielle said Meribel would maintain its focus on small molecules, describing this as a core company strategic position.
He concluded that Meribel’s main challenge would be to integrate its network, maintain quality consistency, and execute its investment programme amid an increasingly competitive European CDMO landscape.
Still, Bruce Vielle remains confident: “With our agility, our culture, and our targeted investments, Meribel is uniquely positioned to deliver what customers need most today: reliability, responsiveness and real partnership”
