Lonza invests in single-use technology and facility upgrades for clinical ADC manufacturing

Published: 11-Jun-2014

Will result in a larger and more flexible production area in Visp, Switzerland


Lonza is to invest in a new plant layout and technology improvements at its clinical antibody drug conjugate (ADC) plant in Visp, Switzerland.

The planned upgrades will include the introduction of single-use technology for flexible ADC manufacturing, along with a recently optimised plant layout and revamping of the heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) systems, which resulted in a larger, more flexible production area and increased manufacturing capacity.

The company says the addition of single-use manufacturing systems will reduce potential product contamination risks and allow for increased manufacturing capacity of existing and novel ADC platforms.

The Visp plant currently produces toxicology lots, early-phase GMP lots and GMP re-supply lots to support ongoing clinical trials for several product candidates.

This new investment is necessary to continue to support the growing pipeline of novel ADC platforms from our customers

'We have witnessed significant growth in the early-phase ADC market in the last two years,' said Stefan Stoffel, Senior Vice President of Operations for Lonza’s Pharma & Biotech segment.

'This new investment is necessary to continue to support the growing pipeline of novel ADC platforms from our customers by offering them new manufacturing technology with increased throughput.'

The facility re-design was completed this spring over a seven-week period and will allow for greater flexibility in new clinical ADC product introduction.

The second wave of single-use technology adoption and qualification is underway and will ultimately reduce cleaning and changeover times between manufacturing campaigns.

The Visp site will continue to offer integrated end-to-end development and manufacturing of ADCs, including the cytotoxic small organic molecules used in these products and all associated analytics.

All current operations will continue without interruption, the company says.

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