Cambrex Corporation is a life sciences company that provides products and services for small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

Cambrex has cGMP manufacturing facilities in the US (Charles City, IA), Europe (Karlskoga, Sweden, Milan, Italy and Hyderabad, India, and R&D centers in Tallinn, Estonia, Wiesbaden, Germany). The headquarters are located in East Rutherford, NJ.

In 2007, Cambrex divested their biologics business to Lonza to focus on small molecule APIs.

Cambrex was founded in 1981, when the CasChem group acquired the castor oil and derivatives product lines from NL Industries. In 1987, CasChem was renamed Cambrex Corporation and became listed on NASDAQ. Cambrex entered the pharmaceutical market in 1994 with the acquisition of Nobel Pharma Chemistry business, now known as Cambrex Karlskoga AB and Cambrex Profarmaco.

Through multiple acquisitions during the late 1990s, the firm entered the bioscience and the chiral enzymatic catalyst markets. In 1998, Cambrex was listed on the NYSE. The firm acquired two contract biopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, in 2001, to bulk manufacture biologics and pharmaceutical ingredients from clinical to commercial scales. In 2007, the firm decided to focus on its core competencies and sold the biologics business to Lonza Group. In 2008, Prosyntest (now Cambrex Tallinn) was acquired, and Steve Klosk was appointed CEO, while remaining President. To broaden their biocatalysis platform, Cambrex acquired IEP, now known as Cambrex IEP. In 2014, they acquired Zenara Pharma to enhance its drug product formulation capabilities, including Nicotine Replacement Therapy products.Cambrex Corporation has agreed to acquire Pharma Core Inc, a private company specializing in developing, manufacturing and scaling up small molecule APIs for clinical phase projects, for approx $25 million