Lonza will establish Centers of Excellence for Cell and Gene Therapy to support and accelerate the growth of this priority area for the company. This decision advances Lonza’s strategy of being one of the world’s leading, integrated, value-added solutions providers along the healthcare continuum.
To further improve its support to customers, Lonza’s Cell- and Gene-Therapy Centers of Excellence will include Lonza sites that are already serving customers and their patients with these innovative technologies.
The Lonza sites in Pearland, TX (USA) and Geleen/Maastricht (NL) will offer a fully integrated range of cell- and gene-therapy services including process and analytical development, clinical product supply and commercial product supply. Lonza’s sites in Portsmouth, NH (USA) and Singapore (SG) will serve both as clinical and commercial manufacturing sites.
The focus on Cell- and Gene-Therapy Centers of Excellence will shift Lonza’s cell-therapy operations out of Walkersville, MD (USA) and enable the Walkersville site to focus entirely on the Bioscience Solutions business.
Through the Lonza Cell- and Gene-Therapy Centers of Excellence, customers will be able to access customer-centric solutions through using:
- Expertise from the highly specialized teams concentrated across key locations
- Continued proximity with a newly focused global footprint spanning the United States, Europe and Asia
- Flexible solutions to support fast-track programs with the integrated offerings
“This move is being made to further facilitate the development and transition to commercial production for Lonza customers who are using, or seeking to use, our state-of-art cell- and gene-therapy services,” said Marc Funk, COO Lonza Pharma & Biotech. “We continue to develop sustainable solutions for our customers, whose patients can ultimately benefit from the latest science and technologies in this sector. These therapies are transforming the way patients are treated.”
“The refined structure of Lonza’s cell- and gene-therapy business will provide opportunities for customers, patients and employees for both the short- and long-term,” said Andreas Weiler, Head of the Emerging Technologies business unit that manages Lonza’s cell- and gene-therapy offerings. “Our combined offerings provide accelerated market readiness, advanced technologies, flexible business models and global locations so that customers can access the depth and breadth of solutions they need in this fast-moving area of novel and innovative medicines.”
Cell and gene therapy is one of the key pillars for Lonza Pharma & Biotech’s overall strategy to deliver the medicines of tomorrow, today.