Lonza is opening a new laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as part of the Swiss CDMO’s plan to expand its early development services (EDS) division in North America.
The 17,000-square-foot facility is expected to begin operating in May and complements the company’s existing EDS facility located in Cambridge, U.K., the company said in a Feb. 13 media advisory.
The expanded services by Lonza are focused on helping customers identify and address potential problems with drug candidates during the early stages of development and before clinical trials to help reduce the risks of failure. The new facility will serve preclinical-stage small and midsized biotechs looking to develop biologic drugs.
Financial details of the project weren’t disclosed.
The project is part of Lonza’s $935 million global expansion announced in May 2021. As part of expansion, the company planned a $220 million, 32,292-square-foot facility in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, featuring eight, 2,000-liter single-use bioreactors. The site, which was forecast to open this year and employ about 250 people, will be equipped to handle projects from phase 3 through commercial-stage manufacturing for low- to middle-volume products.
Meanwhile, in January, Lonza said it completed the expansion of its small-molecule production facility in Bend, Oregon, which included remodeling laboratory space used to develop early-stage compounds. The site also supports solid form screening and characterization of small-molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients plus selection and early crystallization process.