Lonza, a leading supplier of pharma and biotech ingredients, and Chr. Hansen, a developer of natural solutions for food, beverage and nutritionals, have landed a €90m investment for their Joint Venture to pioneer the live biotherapeutic product (LBP) sector.
Together, the two companies will become the first contract development and manufacturing partner (CDMO) for biotech and pharma customers.
This will provide a full supply chain of bacteria strains for therapeutic use and target the emerging clinical and preclinical LBP sector.
“The joint venture is a quantum leap for Chr. Hansen’s human microbiome lighthouse,” said its CEO, Mauricio Graber.
“It’s a great opportunity to utilise our microbial capabilities in the highly attractive LBP industry.
“Chr. Hansen has more than 145 years of experience in strain development and manufacturing and we are really thrilled to join forces with a leading company in the pharma CDMO market.” said Graber.
Meanwhile, Lonza’s CEO Marc Funk believes the partnership will address the unmet needs of the microbiome industry.
He said: “We need to think differently about how we develop solutions for manufacturing in the microbiome space as we see the potential of this therapeutic area develop.
“We are combining expertise that perfectly fits the very specific needs of aspirational companies in the microbiome space.”
Operations will run from Lonza’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, with production facilities in Denmark and Switzerland.