Pharmaceutical company Sanofi and supplier to the pharma/biotech Lonza have announced a partnership to build and operate a large-scale mammalian cell culture facility for monoclonal antibody production in Visp, Switzerland.
New House
The joint venture will combine Sanofi’s biologics development pipeline with Lonza’s expertise to design, construct, start-up and operate a state-of-the-art large-scale mammalian cell culture facility, the companies state.
An initial investment of around €270 million will be split equally between each company. Construction of the first phase of the facility will commence in 2017. The facility is expected to be fully operational by 2020.
Philippe Luscan, executive vice president, Global Industrial Affairs, Sanofi said: "In addition to the investments we are making in building our own internal production capabilities, the joint venture between Sanofi and Lonza emphasises our commitment to provide access for patients to high quality therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. Approximately sixty percent of our pipeline is made up of biologics, including monoclonal antibodies, dedicated to key disease areas such as cardiovascular, immunology and inflammation, neurology and oncology. Lonza is a highly experienced partner in this field and the capabilities which this joint venture will create are critical to meeting our patients' needs for these important therapies."
Marc Funk, COO Pharma & Biotech, Lonza said: “By entering into this long-term strategic relationship we have developed a tailor-made business model that best fits both Sanofi's and Lonza's requirements. It provides to Sanofi dedicated capacity, which allows for a clear win-win situation for all participants. As part of our strategic roadmap, we will develop further innovative business models based on the requirements of our customers. We intend to address these long-term market needs by establishing a state-of-the-art strategic biologics manufacturing platform. The strategic partnership with Sanofi represents the first module in this undertaking; and we are convinced that with this future-oriented approach, we can serve additional customers."
As part of the partnership, each party will share the available capacity in line with their equity shareholding in the joint venture. Other details include Sanofi having additional access to bio-manufacturing capacity to support increasing demands for their portfolio of biologic therapeutic products, should they require it. Lonza will be free to market their share of capacity, if not required by Sanofi, and will also market unused Sanofi capacity, where available,
The partnership aims to enable Sanofi to react quickly to any fluctuations in demand and Lonza will be provided with additional capacity to respond to growing manufacturing demands.