NEW BEARINGS IN FINE CHEMICALS

THE EUROPEAN CUSTOM FINE chemicals manufacturers converging on Madrid for next week's CPhI pharmaceutical ingredients conference have spent the past five years rolling with the punches. Competition from Asia, long threatened, is now a reality. The business has also shifted away from large pharmaceutical firms to emerging drug companies, biopharmaceutical firms, and virtual companies whose needs are different and whose prospects, generally, can only be called iffy. With that shift, the business has also tipped heavily toward the U.S., the center of the world's biopharma industry, where the weak dollar has increased pressure for players in Europe—the traditional home of pharma fine chemicals. European companies hold somewhat divergent views on how well the sector has weathered the recent downturn and prepared itself for the future. The one common element to the European perspective is a commitment to the market and the perennial optimism about the year ahead. Guy Villax, chief executive officer of Loures, P...