In a series of moves by Switzerland-headquartered CDMOs this week, manufacturing powerhouse Lonza is doubling down on its US footprint, while crosstown rival CordenPharma is drafting expansion plans closer to home.
First up, Lonza has announced designs on a new facility in Bend, Oregon, set to finish around 2029 and create dozens of new jobs in the process.
The new site will function as a commercial PSD-4 spray-drying facility, helping to transform water-insoluble pharmaceuticals into more bioavailable powders. While Lonza did not reveal how much it will invest, the new facility will increase its capacity to help manufacture small molecules, as well as more complex modalities like biologics and mRNA.
As more molecules in the clinical pipeline require bioavailability enhancement, Lonza is looking to meet that demand with a particular focus on the US, the company said in a Sept. 10 release.
“The investment in the Bend site reflects our conviction that the United States will remain a leading source of pharmaceutical innovation and a key market for Lonza," Wolfgang Wienand, the CDMO's chief executive, said in a statement.
News of the US expansion follows Lonza’s high-value deal with an unnamed US biopharmaceutical company back in July. Per the deal, Lonza will take over commercial production for two biologic programs with the option to pick up two more.
While the company made no connection between the two decisions, it did say that the facility in Bend “enhances proximity to key customers and supports more resilient, regionalized supply chains for critical therapies.”
Meanwhile, Lonza has already boasted a presence in Bend for nearly half a century, where the company says on its website that it has a long history of addressing solubility challenges.
With the expansion, the company anticipates creating more than 80 new jobs.
Meanwhile, fellow Basel-based contract manufacturer CordenPharma is also ramping up its capacity to produce high-value medicines at its Caponago site in Milan, Italy. This week, the CDMO unveiled an 80 million euro ($96 million) expansion plan for its injectable drug business.
The project includes added capacity to the original Caponago facilities, including two new fill and finish isolator lines, as well as the purchase of an adjacent 11,000-square-meter commercial building for 13 million euros ($15.1 million), plus a purchase of adjacent land.
The overall expansion doubles the site’s footprint by more than 50% and offers innovators a “blank canvas” to tailor their specific production setups, according to CordenPharma.
The CDMO expects to be able to offer a wide range of injectable formats with the new capacity, including prefilled syringes, liquid or freeze-dried vials, cartridges and autoinjectors.
As for the isolator lines, the first is a clinical and small-scale commercial line, while the second is a high-speed prefilled syringe and cartridge line capable of cranking out more than 500,000 units per day. The two lines are set to finish construction in mid-2027 and 2028, respectively.
Together, the new and expanded facilities are expected to scale CordenPharma's capacity up to 500 million injectable units per year. The company is calling the project a “proactive approach to addressing the global healthcare industry's increasing need for specialized injectable manufacturing."
The plans to bolster capacity follow CordenPharma's larger mission, first unveiled in 2024, to invest nearly $1 billion in growing its GLP-1 manufacturing business over three years.
Earlier in 2026, the CDMO paid an undisclosed amount to acquire U.S.-based peptide contractor AmbioPharma, gaining two new manufacturing facilities in South Carolina and Shanghai.