Lonza is to expand its Early Development Services (EDS) offering into North America with a new, laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Covering nearly 1,600 m², this will begin operations in May. No details were given on the expenditure involved.

Like the company’s other EDS lab in Cambridge, UK, the new lab will offer early in silico non-GMP protein expression and in vitro immunosafety assessment services. These will mainly be delivered to the preclinical stage small- to mid-sized biotechs around the Boston area.

Lonza has started up the mid-scale manufacturing assets at its API facility in Nansha in China’s Guangdong province. The site is fully integrated within Lonza’s global small molecules manufacturing network and this expansion has increased employee numbers there by 70 to around 330.

Lonza has completed the expansion of a multi-purpose. kilogram-scale HPAPI manufacturing suite at its main site in Visp, Switzerland. This adds development and manufacturing capacity for ADC payloads, “supporting the entire development and manufacturing pipeline from feasibility studies to commercial supply”.

Ethisphere has named Lonza and Ecolab among the 136 publicly traded companies in 45 industries in 22 countries in its ‘World’s Most Ethical Companies’ listing. These have outperformed a comparable index of large cap companies by 24.6 percentage points over the past five calendar years.

Lonza, which appeared for the second time was one of thee in the Pharmaceuticals category, along with Pfizer and Eli Lilly. The company said that the aware “acknowledges its successful efforts in combining performance with integrity and accountability”.

Lonza has completed an expansion at its API manufacturing site at Nansha, China, as part of its recent investment to expand mid-scale capacity there. This focused on extending the capabilities and capacity of development laboratories and kilo-scale cGMP manufacturing laboratories for clinical supply of HPAPIs.

Lonza has completed the carve-out of its Lonza Specialty Ingredients, as announced in February. The business, temporarily known as LSI, will be relaunched shortly under a different name. It is now owned by Herens HoldCo, an entity controlled by private equity firms Bain Capital and Cinven, who acquired it for an enterprise value of CHF 4.2 billion.

Lonza its to expand its two-year collaboration with Moderna to manufacture the drug substance for Moderna’ COVID-19 vaccine. This will lead to further expansion at its main site in Visp, Switzerland, as will another small molecule complex, which includes a dedicated line for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for an unnamed customer.