Swiss CDMO Lonza is bulking up its bioconjugation manufacturing digs with two new multicustomer suites and 200 new jobs at its Visp, Switzerland, plant.
The expansion, which should go live in 2028, will add two multipurpose 1,200L manufacturing suites and related infrastructure to help boost the launch and commercial supply of products in the popular antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) drug class. The suites will take up some 2,000 square meters and double the company’s capacity in the bioconjugates vein, plus create 200 new jobs.
“We continue to see strong growth in the bioconjugates space as ADCs and other bioconjugated drugs increasingly progress towards commercialization,” Lonza’s head of bioconjugates Christian Morello said in a Nov. 12 press release. “This investment in our multipurpose commercial bioconjugation capacity addresses the growing market demand, enables us to support the growth of our customers and offers a flexible and integrated service for manufacturing bioconjugates.”
Just last month, Lonza extended a long-term collaboration with an unnamed “major global biopharmaceutical partner” for commercial-scale ADC manufacturing, widening the customer’s dedicated bioconjugation spot with a new 800-square-meter suite at the CDMO’s Ibex Biopark in Visp. The partners’ current collaboration already concerns several services for an ADC molecule targeting hard-to-treat cancers, and Lonza will now add manufacturing services for a new ADC for solid tumors.
That new suite should be operational in 2027 and create 100 new jobs.
So far, Lonza has produced more than 1,000 bioconjugate batches for over 70 programs since 2006, according to the company. Around this time last year, the CDMO initiated a similar collaboration extension with an unnamed partner to boost its bioconjugation capacity of the complex drugs fourfold with two new suites and 180 new jobs by 2026.
Outside of the ADC space, Vertex recently tapped Lonza to help make global commercial supply of its gene editing therapy Casgevy with a long-term contract. Lonza will produce the CRISPR Therapeutics-partnered sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia treatment from its cell therapy manufacturing site in the Netherlands, with a plan to eventually expand production to its U.S. plant in New Hampshire.