Swiss fine chemicals producer Lonza and Danish biosciences company Chr. Hansen are forming a 50:50 joint venture to develop and manufacture live biotherapeutic products (LBPs) for pharma and biotech customers. 

The partnership plans to invest €90 million in the Basel, Switzerland-headquartered joint venture, which will have production facilities both in Switzerland and Denmark.

With the ambition of being positioned as the leading contract development and manufacturing partner (CDMO) globally for pharma and biotech clients in the LBP field, the companies said the jv will focus on providing a full supply chain to manufacture bacteria strains.

The partners expect the market value of supplying clinical and commercial supplies for the industry to exceed €1 billion by 2035.

Under one roof, the joint venture will pool the two companies’ leading competences in handling, characterizing, formulating, manufacturing and encapsulating strict anaerobe bacteria. This, they said, will allow “seamless exchanges” between drug substance and drug product activities, thus shortening development timelines and increasing the chance of achieving the desired result the first time around.

While Chr. Hansen will contribute its extensive know-how in developing, upscaling and manufacturing bacteria strains, Lonza will bring strong capabilities in pharma contract manufacturing and formulation into the partnership, along with drug delivery technologies, including its enTRinsic capsules.

For the Danish firm, CEO Mauricio Graber explained that the jv with Lonza is a way for Chr. Hansen to utilize its 145 years of experience in strain development and manufacturing and to play in “the highly attractive” LBP industry without becoming a fully-fledged pharmaceutical producer.

 Lonza’s new CEO, Mark Funk, added that that combining his company’s expertise with the knowhow of one of the world’s largest producers of bacteria “perfectly fits the very specific needs of aspirational companies in the microbiome space.”

The jv partners will share investment costs equally over the three years that will be needed to build cGMP-compliant production facilities. An initial €45 million will go toward upgrading existing facilities at Hørsholm, Denmark, while new facilities in Basel will be equipped to handle preclinical to Phase 2 projects. Another €45 million will be invested in commercial production capabilities if customer demand for clinical Phase3 and commercial supply is confirmed.