WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES INC (WST) Business
This page reproduces the company's own Item 1 Business text from the linked SEC filing. It is filer text, not grepcent analysis, scoring, or investment advice.
Informational only - not investment advice. See Disclaimer.
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
General
We are a leading global manufacturer in the design and production of technologically advanced, high-quality, integrated containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products. Our products include a variety of primary proprietary packaging, containment solutions, reconstitution and transfer systems, and drug delivery systems, as well as contract manufacturing, analytical lab services and integrated solutions. Our customers include leading biologic, generic, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device companies in the world. Our top priority is delivering quality products that meet the exact product specifications and quality standards customers require and expect. This focus on quality includes a commitment to excellence in manufacturing, scientific and technical expertise and management, which enables us to partner with our customers in order to deliver safe, effective drug products to patients quickly and efficiently.
Business Segments
Our business operations are organized into two global business segments, Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products.
Proprietary Products Segment
Our Proprietary Products reportable segment offers elastomers & primary containment, drug delivery devices, integrated systems, and analytical lab services, primarily to biologic, generic, and pharmaceutical drug customers. Our packaging products include stoppers and seals for injectable packaging systems, which are designed to help ensure drug compatibility and stability with active drug products, while also supporting operational efficiency for customers. These packaging products also include syringe and cartridge components, including custom solutions for the specific needs of injectable drug applications, as well as administration systems that can enhance the safe delivery of drugs through advanced reconstitution, mixing and transfer technologies. We also provide films, coatings, washing, vision inspection and sterilization processes and services to enhance the quality of our packaging products and mitigate the risk of contamination and compatibility issues.
This segment’s product portfolio also includes drug containment solutions in the form of vials, syringes, plungers and cartridges. These products can provide a high-quality solution to glass incompatibility issues and can stand up to cold storage environments, while reducing the risk of breakage that exists with glass. In addition, we offer a variety of self-injection devices, designed to address the need to provide at-home delivery of injectable therapies. These devices are patient-centric technologies that are easy-to-use and can be combined with connected health technologies that have the potential to increase adherence.
In addition to our Proprietary Products product portfolio, we provide our customers with a range of integrated solutions, including analytical lab services, pre-approval primary packaging support and engineering development, regulatory expertise, and after-sales technical support. Offering the combination of primary proprietary packaging components, containment solutions, and drug delivery devices, as well as a broad range of integrated services, helps to position us as a leader in the integrated containment and delivery of injectable medicines.
This reportable segment has manufacturing facilities in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, with affiliated companies in Japan and Mexico. Please refer to Item 2, Properties, for additional information on our manufacturing and other sites.
Contract-Manufactured Products Segment
Our Contract-Manufactured Products reportable segment serves as a fully integrated business, focused on the design, manufacture, and automated assembly of complex devices, primarily for pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device customers. These products include a variety of custom contract-manufacturing and assembly solutions, which use technologies such as multi-component molding, in-mold labeling, ultrasonic welding, clean room molding, device assembly, and drug handling capabilities. We manufacture customer-owned components and devices used in surgical, diagnostic, ophthalmic, injectable, and other drug delivery systems, as well as consumer products.
We have vast expertise in product design and development, including in-house mold design, process design and validation and high-speed automated assemblies.
This reportable segment has manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe. Please refer to Item 2, Properties, for additional information on our manufacturing and other sites.
4
International
We have significant operations outside of the United States (“U.S.”), which are managed through the same business segments as our U.S. operations – Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products. Sales outside of the U.S. accounted for 56.7% of our consolidated net sales in 2025.
Although the general business processes are similar to the domestic business, international operations are exposed to additional risks. These risks include currency fluctuations relative to the U.S. Dollar (“USD”) and multiple tax jurisdictions.
See further discussion of our international operations, the risks associated with our international operations, and our attempt to minimize some of these risks in Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors; Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations under the caption Financial Condition, Liquidity and Capital Resources; Part II, Item 7A, Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk; Note 1, Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies under the captions Financial Instruments and Foreign Currency Translation; and Note 11, Derivative Financial Instruments.
Raw Materials
We use three primary raw materials in the manufacture of our products: elastomers, aluminum and plastic. Elastomers include both synthetic and natural materials. We currently have access to adequate supplies of these raw materials to meet our production needs through robust agreements with suppliers, supported by a dedicated supplier performance and supplier relationship management framework. We are required to carry significant amounts of inventory to meet customer requirements, which is managed using a critical material planning process within supply chain. In addition, some of our supply agreements require us to purchase inventory in bulk orders, which increases inventory levels but decreases the risk of supply interruption.
We employ a supply chain management strategy in our business segments, which involves purchasing from integrated suppliers that control their own sources of supply. Due to quality and regulatory control over our production processes, single source availability, and the quality and regulatory burden required in qualifying suppliers, we rely on single-source suppliers for certain critical raw materials. In such circumstances, we deploy a range of cross-functional resources to manage the existing supplier relationship and to profile and manage the supply disruption risk. We purchase certain raw materials in the open commodities market and therefore the results of our operations may be affected by price fluctuations. This strategy increases the risk that our supply chain may be interrupted in the event of a supplier production or distribution problem. These risks are managed, when and where possible, by selecting suppliers with multiple manufacturing sites, rigorous quality control systems, surplus inventory levels and other methods of maintaining supply in case of an interruption in production or distribution. Heightened inflation may result in unfavorable conditions, inclusive of an increase in raw material cost. To date, we have been able to manage these conditions without significant disruption to our business.
While we work closely with our suppliers, no assurance can be given that these efforts will be successful, and there may be events that cause supply interruption, reduction or termination that adversely impact our ability to manufacture and sell certain products. See further discussion of the risks related to the supply chain and raw materials in Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Intellectual Property
Our intellectual property, including patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, know-how and trade secrets, is important to our business. We own or license intellectual property rights, including know-how and issued patents and pending patent applications in the U.S. and in other countries, which relate to various aspects of our business. Certain key value-added and proprietary products and processes are exclusively licensed from Daikyo. We believe, however, that neither our business nor any business segment is wholly dependent on a single intellectual property asset, license, or technology, by itself.
5
Government Regulation
Our business activities are global and are subject to various federal, state, local, and foreign laws, rules, and regulations to healthcare, environmental protection, occupational health and safety, anti-corruption, export control, product safety and efficacy, employment, privacy and other areas. The design, development, manufacturing, marketing and labeling of certain of our products and our customers’ products that incorporate our products are subject to regulation by governmental authorities in the U.S., Europe and other countries, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), the European Medicines Agency and the National Medical Products Administration (China). Regulatory authorities, including regulatory review and oversight, can impact on the time and cost associated with the development and continued availability of our products, and they have the authority to take various administrative and legal actions against West. Compliance with existing and forthcoming laws and regulations can be costly and time-consuming, and may require changes to our information technologies, systems and practices.
Changes in tax policy or trade regulations, or the imposition of new tariffs on imported products, could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Compliance with these laws, rules and regulations did not require material capital expenditures in 2025 and is not expected to have a material effect on our capital expenditures, results of operations and competitive position in 2026. For more information on the potential impacts of government regulations affecting our business, see "Item 1A. Risk Factors." There were no required material capital expenditures for adherence to our government-led regulatory standards in our facilities in 2025 outside the normal course of business, and there are currently no needed or planned material expenditures for 2026.
West is also subject to various federal and state laws, and laws outside the United States, concerning fraud and abuse, global anti-corruption, and export control. Many of the agencies enforcing these laws have increased their enforcement actions with respect to healthcare manufacturers in recent years. We remain committed as a company to comply with all laws and regulations applicable to our business.
Environmental Regulations
We are subject to various national, state and local provisions regulating the discharge of materials into the environment or otherwise relating to the protection of the environment. Our compliance with these laws and regulations has not had a material impact on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. There were no required material capital expenditures for environmental controls in our facilities in 2025 and there are currently no needed or planned material expenditures for 2026.
Marketing
Our Proprietary Products customers primarily include many of the major biologic, generic, and pharmaceutical drug companies in the world, which incorporate our components and other offerings into their injectable products for distribution to the point of care and ultimate end-user, the patient. Our Contract-Manufactured Products customers include many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device companies. Contract-Manufactured Products components generally are incorporated into our customers’ manufacturing lines for further processing or assembly. Our products and services are sold and distributed primarily through our own sales force and distribution network, with limited use of contract sales agents and regional distributors.
Our ten largest customers accounted for 47.6% of our consolidated net sales in 2025, and one of these customers individually accounted for more than 10% of consolidated net sales, at 15.8% or $485.9 million, contributing to net sales in both the Proprietary and Contract Manufacturing reporting segments. Please refer to Note 3, Revenue, and Note 19, Segment Information, for additional information on our consolidated net sales.
Competition
With our range of proprietary technologies, we compete with several companies, such as Datwyler and Aptar, across our Proprietary Products product lines. Competition for these components is based primarily on product design and performance, quality, regulatory compliance, and scientific expertise, along with total cost.
In addition, there are a number of competitors supplying medical devices and medical device components, including a number of pharmaceutical manufacturers who are also potential customers of our medical devices and components. We compete in this market on the basis of our reputation for quality and reliability in engineering and project management, as well as our knowledge of, and experience in, compliance with regulatory requirements.
6
We have specialized knowledge of container closure components, which is integral to developing delivery systems. With our range of proprietary technologies, we compete with new and established companies in the area of drug delivery devices, including suppliers of prefillable syringes, auto-injectors, safety needles, and other proprietary systems.
We seek to differentiate ourselves from our competition by serving as a global supplier of integrated drug containment and delivery systems that can provide pre-approval primary packaging support and engineering development, analytical lab services and integrated solutions, regulatory expertise, and after-sale technical support. Customers also appreciate the global scope of our manufacturing capability and our ability to produce many products at multiple sites.
Our Contract-Manufactured Products business operates in very competitive markets for its products. The competition for device manufacturing varies from smaller regional companies such as SMC Ltd. to large global assembly manufacturers such as Phillips Medisize. Given the cost pressures they face, many of our customers look to reduce costs by sourcing from low-cost locations. We seek to differentiate ourselves by leveraging our global capabilities and reputation and by employing new technologies such as high-speed automated assembly, insert-molding, multi-shot precision molding, expertise with multiple-piece closure systems, and more recently scalable drug packaging and assembly solutions, which expands our competitive set to include CMO’s such as Sharp and PCI Pharma Services.
Research and Development Activities
We maintain our own research-scale production facilities and laboratories for developing new products and offer contract engineering design and development services to assist customers with new product development. Our quality control, regulatory and laboratory testing capabilities are used to ensure compliance with applicable manufacturing and regulatory standards for primary and secondary pharmaceutical packaging components and drug delivery systems. Technological advances and scientific discoveries have accelerated the pace of change in primary packaging, drug delivery and administration technologies.
Commercial development of our new products and services for medical and pharmaceutical applications commonly requires several years. New products that we develop may require separate approval as medical devices, and products that are intended to be used in the packaging and delivery of pharmaceutical products are subject to both customer acceptance of our products and regulatory approval of the customers' products following our development period.
We continue to pursue strategic initiatives in drug containment components, integrated drug containment systems, novel drug delivery devices, novel therapeutic experiences and administration systems.
We also continue to seek new innovative opportunities for acquisition, licensing, partnering or development of products, services and technologies.
Human Capital Management
Our People
As of December 31, 2025, we employed approximately 10,800 people, excluding contractors and temporary workers, in our operations throughout the world. The following table presents the approximate percentage of our employees by region:
| North America | 43% |
|---|---|
| Europe | 42% |
| Asia Pacific | 12% |
| South America | 3% |
| Total | 100% |
7
As of December 31, 2025, the following table presents the approximate percentage of our employees by function:
| Proprietary Products | 73% |
|---|---|
| Contract-Manufactured Products | 17% |
| Corporate | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
As of December 31, 2025, approximately 37% of our full-time employees were female.
Training, Compliance and Talent Development
We strongly encourage our team members to engage in continuous learning and provide development opportunities to strengthen individual skills and gain new experiences with the goal to build talent from within. We offer resources such as our tuition reimbursement program and our online learning catalog, with more than 50,000 courses available. We centrally manage and organize on-the-job training, instructor-led trainings and online trainings in many different languages and topics through our global Learning Management System.
Our team members live our values (Passion for Customer, Leadership in Quality and One West Team) as they work together to support our mission to improve patients' lives. West’s Code of Conduct, available in multiple languages on westpharma.com, provides guidance to our team members on appropriate and ethical conduct.
Our focus on talent acquisition, performance management, resource planning and management development is strongly aligned with our inclusion, collaboration, and innovation strategies, all of which lead to more opportunities, better access to talent and stronger business performance.
Compensation and Benefits
West is committed to providing fair and competitive compensation and benefits programs to attract, retain and reward high-performing team members at all levels. We offer a comprehensive total rewards program to support the health, financial and home-life needs of our team members. Total Rewards at West are defined as the value of the Compensation and Benefits programs offered to employees, which aim to reflect the value of the job and the contribution of the individual, while linking employees’ performance to business and personal results. Based on country of employment, West may provide health care and retirement savings programs as well as paid time off, flexible work schedules, a Global Employee Assistance Program and an Employee Stock Purchase Program.
Health, Safety and Wellness
The health and safety of our team members has always been both a top priority and a cultural value. West's commitment to the safety of our teams starts at the top and is driven throughout our business by every level of management and by every team member across the globe. West has a Health, Safety, and Environment ("HSE") Governance Council consisting of West Leadership Team members and executive operations leaders to monitor and support our HSE process. West’s global HSE team is also a critical component in leading the safety efforts at our sites. Each manufacturing location has dedicated and trained HSE professionals, responsible for general safety oversight and regulatory compliance at the site. Through our SEE-DO-SAY program, we train, empower, and expect our team members to proactively identify and mitigate risk before an incident occurs. Our HSE and employee well-being can also be seen in our focus on quality implementation of proactive Leading Indicator programs and metrics, and team-member-led Hazard Identification programs that help to drive improved Lagging Indicator performance.
8
Corporate Sustainability Commitment
West has been committed to sustainability topics for many years. During 2025, our focus was navigating a dynamic compliance environment, given the increased requirements and uncertainty surrounding regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation, and on advancing our long-term strategic priorities. Our sustainability team, which is led by our General Counsel, includes cross-functional collaboration and has been working with executive leadership, our board and other stakeholders to enhance our sustainability framework and ensure alignment with our corporate mission, vision and values. Our long-term strategic priorities include focus on talent attraction, retention and engagement; a climate and greenhouse gas ("GHG") reduction strategy that incorporates renewable energy and reduced absolute emissions; developing a more sustainable and responsible supply chain; research and development that begins to incorporate sustainability; and, reducing waste to landfill and lowering water intensity in our operational processes. These areas of focus are in addition to our commitments to safety, quality, business continuity, and business compliance and integrity. Additionally, our philanthropic programs are an essential element of our corporate citizenship especially as we focus on the areas of children’s health; access to healthcare; and science, technology, engineering and math education. We have expanded our philanthropic scope to include more sustainability related initiatives. We solicit input from a variety of stakeholders including employees, customers, and suppliers on ways to improve in these and other sustainability areas and see continued progress in these areas as critical to maintaining an engaged and responsible workforce.
Available Information
We maintain a website at www.westpharma.com. Our Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) are available on our website under the Investors - Financial caption as soon as reasonably practical after we electronically file the material with, or furnish it to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). These filings are also available to the public over the Internet at the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov.
In Part III of this Form 10-K, we incorporate by reference certain information from parts of other documents filed with the SEC and from our Proxy Statement for the 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders (“2026 Proxy Statement”), which will be filed with the SEC within 120 days following the end of our 2025 fiscal year. Our 2026 Proxy Statement will be available on our website under the caption Investors - Financial - Annual Reports & Proxy when complete.
Information about our corporate governance, including our Corporate Governance Principles and Code of Conduct, as well as information about our Directors, Board Committees, Committee Charters, and instructions on how to contact the Board, is available on our website under the Investors - Corporate Governance heading. We intend to make any required disclosures regarding any amendments of our Code of Conduct under the caption Investors - Corporate Governance on our website. Information relating to the West Pharmaceutical Services Dividend Reinvestment Plan is also available on our website under the Investors - Transfer Agent caption.
Information on our website does not constitute part of this document.
We will provide any of the foregoing information without charge upon written request to our Corporate Secretary, West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., 530 Herman O. West Drive, Exton, PA 19341.