While U.S. drugmaker Alexion ($ALXN) is building up its manufacturing operations in Europe, French CMO Lonza will do the same for Alexion in the U.S.
Lonza announced today that it has agreed to build a suite at is manufacturing plant in Portsmouth, NH, that will be dedicated to Alexion products. It was mum about the cost of the project which is part of an extended manufacturing agreement between the two companies. It said that the expansion will supplement existing production of Alexion products at other Lonza facilities.
Alexion has spent the last several years building up its European manufacturing base in Ireland. In May, the maker of the rare disease drug Soliris said it would build there a €450 million ($506 million), 60,000-square-foot biologics plant, its first outside the U.S. When complete in about four years, Alexion expects to have 200 employees working there.
That will add to its growing presence in Ireland, which it anticipates to hit 300 by 2016 from 170 as it finishes other projects there. The plant will be at a site just outside of Dublin where it already is working on an $84 million logistics center that includes laboratories, packaging and warehousing operations. It also is working on a vial-filling facility in Athlone.
- here's the release