Lonza to buy Shire's Cali mammalian manufacturing plant

By Gareth Macdonald

- Last updated on GMT

Lonza to buy Shire's Cali mammalian manufacturing plant
Lonza will buy Shire’s manufacturing facility in Hayward, California to cater for demand for mammalian cell culture-based drug production.

The plant houses 1,000L and 2,000L bioreactors and associated downstream processing technologies and employs a staff of 100 people, all of whom have been offered jobs by the Swiss contract manufacturing organisation.

Lonza cited increasing demand for clinical-stage manufacturing and said “the acquisition of the site will provide additional cGMP capacity and will supplement our existing assets in Slough (UK).​” It predicted that production will start next year.

A Lonza spokesman told us production activities at the facility will use single-use technologies.

He also said Lonza will make reagents used in a number of Shire products, but declined to share details.

Shire gained the site when it bought Baxalta last year​.

The decision to sell the facility comes less than a year after Shire announced ​it planned to build a biologics manufacturing facility in Piercetown, County Meath, Ireland.

Mammalian business

Lonza’s comments about increased demand for clinical stage mammalian cell culture-based manufacturing echo what it said about its commercial-scale business in its half-year statement.

At the time the contractor said: “Mammalian Manufacturing profited from uninterrupted production campaigns with high capacity utilization and its robust customer base, leading to further sales and performance increases in H1 2017​.”

It also outlined its efforts to up capacity, highlighting the in-progress expansion of its facility in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and the facility it is building in Singapore as examples.

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