Lonza invests again in Visp high-potency capacity
pharmafile | May 17, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | APIs, HPAPIs, Lonza, manufacturing and production
Lonza has pushed further into the high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredient (HPAPI) sector with another round of investment at its manufacturing facilities in Visp, Switzerland.
The fine chemicals and contract manufacturing company plans to invest 24 million Swiss francs ($27 million) to expand its manufacturing capabilities in Visp, in response to what it describes as growing demand for cytotoxic APIs used in oncology therapeutics, “one of the fastest growing segments of the pharma and biotech industry”.
Contract manufacturers in the US and Europe have increasingly been moving into specialised areas such as HPAPIs, because to date there has been less competition from API suppliers in emerging markets such as Asia and Eastern Europe.
At the moment, US and European API suppliers are estimated to hold around 80% of the HPAPI market, which is currently growing at a rate of more than 8% a year. The fastest growth in the market, however, is coming from the Asia-Pacific region which currently holds a 9% share.
Lonza currently provides GMP production of HPAPIs at Visp in laboratory suites on gram-scale, but the new round of investment will add multi-kilogram scale cytotoxic production capacity.
This will enable Lonza to offer clinical and commercial production of cytotoxics, all within one dedicated facility. The expansion is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2012.
The company said that the investment would bring enhanced fermentation and chemical capabilities, along with existing bioconjugation expertise, which will help it to “comprehensively address its customers’ cytotoxic manufacturing challenges”.
Stefan Stoffel, head of Lonza’s chemical manufacturing business unit, said: “Lonza Visp will offer a fully integrated end-to-end development and manufacturing solution for a wide-range of technologies, including highly active pharmaceutical ingredients, cytotoxics, peptides and antibody drug conjugates (ADCs).”
In future, cytotoxic production projects will be initiated in Visp’s laboratory suites and then transition to the new manufacturing facility for scale-up.
Phil Taylor
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