Lonza to expand early development services into North America

CDMO Lonza will expand its early development services (EDS) offering by constructing a laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Swiss contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Lonza said the expansion, of which financial details remain under wraps, is expected to be fully operational at the 17,000 square-foot facility in May 2023.

According to the firm, its EDS offering enables customer support in de-risking, assessing, and optimizing drug candidate potential to make it to market. Lonza already has an EDS facility in Cambridge, UK where the services are delivered via a suite of in silico, early non-GMP protein expression as well as in vitro immunogenicity services.

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The Massachusetts facility will provide the same capabilities, with a particular focus on early non-GMP expression and in vitro immunosafety assessment services.

“On average, only one in every thousand molecules succeeds beyond Phase I trials,” Jean-Christophe Hyvert, president, Biologics, at Lonza said.

“In this environment, early development services are essential in mitigating risks, reducing attrition, and improving the quality and safety of biologic treatments. We have an established track record in supporting customers through the complex early stages of drug development and our new EDS facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts will support this offering in North America.”

The new facility, set to be located near to the Boston biotech community, will primarily serve small-to-mid-sized biotech firms developing biologic drug candidates. The CDMO will support its clients from its US site from early development stages through to commercialization.

“Early assessment of immunogenicity, developability and manufacturability of novel drug candidates significantly increases the chances of success. This new expansion increases our flexibility to support customers in advancing potentially life-saving drug candidates from late-stage discovery into the clinic. It will enable us to support US biotech’s in managing the path to commercialization for their novel therapies,” Yvette Stallwood, head of Early Development Services at Lonza said.

This month, the firm announced plans to add further manufacturing and parking capabilities at its Portsmouth, New Hampshire site.