Pharmaceutical Ingredient Suppliers Meet for CPhI Worldwide

As the pharmaceutical industry gathers for the 2006 installment of CPhI Worldwide, the annual exhibition of ingredient producers, custom manufacturers, and contract service providers, it faces an expanding number of choices for connecting with suppliers.

CPhI Worldwide is being held Oct. 3–5 in Paris, and CMP Information, the organizer of the event, expects exhibitor numbers to be ahead of last year's event. In 2005, CPhI Worldwide, which was held in Madrid, attracted more than 21,000 visitors and 1459 exhibitors. For 2006, exhibitor numbers were ahead of bookings, year-to-date as of early August 2006.

CPhI Worldwide is held concurrently with ICSE, an exhibition of outsourced service providers, and P-MEC (pharmaceutical machinery and equipment). ICSE was launched in 2000 and P-MEC in 2005.

"We launched P-MEC in 2005 because other machinery events were so general," says Kate Chambers, group exhibitions director, chemical and pharmaceutical ingredients, CMP Information. "The plant managers, procurement specialists, and senior managers who visit P-MEC control major budgets and plans. They also may be responsible for purchasing raw materials or outsourced services, so the package of connected opportunities at CPhI, ICSE, and P-MEC helps them to do business."

In 2007, CPhI Worldwide will be held Oct. 2–4 in Milan, Italy. In 2005, CMP decide to make a long-term change so CPhI in Europe always will be staged in the first two weeks of October to provide sufficient time between CPhI and InformexUSA, which is held midway through the first quarter of each year. In 2007, InformexUSA will be held Feb. 13-16 in San Francisco.

The 2006 installment of InformexUSA marked the first time CMP ran the show following the sale of Informex to CMP from the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (Washington, DC, www.socma.org). As it did in 2006, SOCMA will remain the US sponsor of InformexUSA.

SOCMA also will be an event partner as CMP expands the Informex trade show. In 2006, CMP will debut InformexChina, which will be held Nov. 8–9 in Guangzhou, China, and which will be similarly timed in November for 2007. In 2007, CMP also will launch InformexEurope in Berlin, Jun. 5–7.

While CPhI Worldwide focuses exclusively on pharmaceutical ingredients, Informex has a broader focus to include custom manufacturers of both fine and specialty chemicals. Suppliers of pharmaceutical ingredients and services constitute the majority (roughly 60%) of exhibitors of InformexUSA, and CMP expects a similar profile at Informe Europe. The remaining 40% of exhibitors supply specialty chemicals to other consumer and industrial end-markets.

Just as Informex is broadening its international reach, so will CPhI with the addition of CPhI India in 2006, which will be held in conjunction with the Annual Indian Pharmaceutical Congress and PharmaExpo, Dec. 1–3 in Mumbai. CPhI already holds two other events in Asia: CPhI Japan, which started in 2002, and CPhI China, which was first staged in 2001. CPhI China hosted 18,000 visitors and nearly 1100 exhibitors in 2006. CPhI Japan attracted 13,000 visitors and 425 exhibitors, according to data from CMP Information. In 2007, CPhI China will be held in Pudong, Jun. 19–21, and CPhI Japan will be held in Tokyo Apr. 18–19 in 2007.