Lonza today announced the expansion of its collaboration with Moderna, a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines to further extend the manufacture of the drug substance for the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna. 

The collaboration provides for the installation of a new manufacturing line for drug substance production at Lonza’s Geleen site in the Netherlands. As such, the new production line will contribute to the supply of up to an additional 300 million doses per year, at a 50ug dose, once operating at full capacity. 

In May 2020, Lonza and Moderna announced a ten-year strategic collaboration agreement to enable the manufacture of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and additional Moderna products in the future. Since then, Lonza has installed three production lines at its Visp (CH) site and one production line in Portsmouth (US). In April 2021, Lonza and Moderna entered a new agreement to add three further production lines at its Visp (CH) site. 

The new production line in Geleen is expected to be operational by the end of 2021 where Lonza will leverage its existing infrastructure to provide fast build-out and ramp-up of operations. 

Jean-Christophe Hyvert, President, Biologics and Cell & Gene, Lonza said, “Once more, we are pleased to leverage our network as we expand our collaboration with Moderna further to extend our mRNA manufacturing to Lonza Geleen (NL). The extension reflects the continuing growth of our strategic collaboration with Moderna. We are proud to play our part in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and look forward to bringing to bear our experience from Portsmouth (US) and Visp (CH) at our Geleen site in the Netherlands.”