Lonza today announced new investments in GMP laboratories and mid-scale manufacturing assets at its API manufacturing center in Nansha, China. The investments, totaling over CHF 20 million, will allow Lonza to provide a smoother transition from small-scale to large-scale manufacturing for customers while maintaining Lonza’s global quality and regulatory standards.

 

The expansion will include six 1,000L small molecule reactors, four 1,500L vessels, and isolation equipment providing mid-scale capacity to bridge between early-phase and late-phase production. The additional GMP laboratories will be able to develop and manufacture highly potent API (HPAPI) under GMP standards.

 

Lonza’s Nansha site is fully integrated within the company’s global manufacturing network. Scientists and engineers based in Nansha focus on API development and manufacturing for customers around the globe. The Lonza team also contains regulatory specialists with experience working with Chinese regulators throughout the drug development and scale-up process. Approximately 250 employees work at Lonza’s Nansha site; this expansion is expected to create around 70 new positions.

 

The expanded laboratories and manufacturing facilities at Nansha are expected to come online between Q1 2022 and Q3 2022.

 

Jan Vertommen, Senior Director, Commercial Development, Lonza said: “Increasing our capabilities by adding mid-scale API manufacturing at our site in Nansha will benefit our customers, and especially the many global emerging biotech companies we partner with. These companies need cost-effective, seamless ways to move small molecule compounds from early-phase to commercial according to global quality and regulatory standards, and these expanded facilities at our Nansha site are designed to help them to do so.”

 

Gordon Bates, President, Division Small Molecules, Lonza said: “Global pharma and biotech companies are increasingly looking to China, both for development and manufacturing of global products and in some cases for greater access to clinical trials conducted in China. With these expanded capabilities at our Nansha site, we aim to support the next generation of innovative and life-saving drug development with our customers around the world.”