Lonza acquires Roche US biologics facility for $1.2 billion

Lonza Group, one of the world’s largest healthcare development and manufacturing organizations, announced the purchase of Genentech’s large-scale biologics manufacturing site in Vacaville, USA, from Roche for $1.2 billion.

The Vacaville facility significantly expands Lonza’s mammalian business capabilities in the United States, the world’s largest pharmaceutical market. The facility complements Lonza’s existing US East Coast manufacturing sites as well as its international network across Europe and Asia Pacific.

With approximately 330,000 liters of total bioreactor capacity, the Vacaville facility is one of the largest biologics manufacturing facilities in the world. The acquisition significantly expands the production capabilities within the Lonza network for late-stage clinical and commercial products as well as new molecules on the road to commercialization. The facility joins the mammalian business unit of Lonza’s biologics division, and more than 750 Vacaville employees are currently directly employed by Lonza.

Wolfgang Wienand, CEO of Lonza, said: "The successful acquisition of the Vacaville site is a major milestone for Lonza and a reflection of our commitment to deliver long-term value to our customers and shareholders. With the addition of the Vacaville site to our Biologics division, we look forward to bringing new customer projects to the site to meet the ongoing demand for commercial biologics manufacturing across the business."

The acquisition of the large mammalian manufacturing site complements Lonza's ongoing investments in large-scale bioconjugates at Visp (CH) and drug product manufacturing at Stein (CH) to support large-scale end-to-end manufacturing of complex biologics. Lonza plans to invest approximately CHF 500 million to further upgrade the facility and increase capacity to meet the needs of the next generation of mammalian biologics therapeutics.

The products previously manufactured at the site will now be supplied by Lonza to Roche at committed minimum volumes in the medium term and will be phased out as the site transitions to serve other customers.