GE Healthcare is to develop a biologics facility for Lonza in Guangzhou, China, as part of a recently inked agreement. The facility is part of a larger biomanufacturing initiative between GE Healthcare and Guangzhou Development District (GDD). For the project to progress, Lonza will sign a memorandum of understanding with GDD. The new facility will give Lonza Pharma & Biotech a strategic base in China to respond to growing demand for high-quality CDMO services in the country.

By working with GE Healthcare to develop the new facility, based on the KUBio platform – an off-the-shelf biologics factory developed by GE Healthcare – Lonza intends to offer its suite of antibody development services and manufacture GMP-certified batches by 2020. The two companies will work closely on the design of the 17,000m2 site, which will include 6,500m2 of lab space and one KUBio facility.

The labs will house Lonza’s proprietary platforms for cell-line construction, including the GS Gene Expression System, as well as process development, cell banking and pilot labs. The KUBio unit will enable small-scale GMP manufacturing equipped with GE Healthcare’s single-use biomanufacturing technologies, including 1,000 and 2,000L bioreactors, combined with Lonza’s automation platforms for clinical and early-commercial supply.

“This partnership is the ideal way for Lonza to bring our expertise and technology to China,” says Marc Funk, COO Lonza Pharma & Biotech. “The combination of a strong and experienced technology provider with a long history in China, together with a dynamic regional authority, means that we can rapidly offer services to customers and ultimately get innovative therapies to patients more quickly.

GE Healthcare is working with the GDD to support large-scale manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals in China.

“With Lonza coming on site, a hub of biotech is truly taking shape,” says Emmanuel Ligner, President and CEO, GE Healthcare Life Sciences. “This agreement is yet another step in realizing our vision of enabling and supporting manufacturers of all sizes to quickly deploy capacity and meet increasing customer demand for biologics.”

The facility in China will extend Lonza Pharma & Biotech’s global biologics network that provides development and manufacturing services from gene through Investigational New Drug (IND) and Biologics License Application (BLA) to mature commercial supply. In addition to the new Chinese site, the network comprises small-, mid- and large-scale assets in Switzerland, the US, UK, Spain and Singapore.

China has been historically underserved by biologics, Lonza notes, but demand for antibody therapies is expected to grow significantly over the coming years. A strong scientific base and commercial instruments put into place by the Chinese authorities are encouraging their domestic companies developing innovative therapies for the global market, as well as multinationals with manufacturing requirements in the country. In particular, national rollout of the Marketing Authorization Holder scheme by 2019 paves the way for dedicated CDMO services in China.

In recent news, Lonza sold its Water Care business to Platinum Equity in a US$630 million deal last month. The move hopes to allow Lonza to focus on its healthcare continuum strategy, which includes patient healthcare, consumer preventive healthcare and consumer’s healthy environment.

The company posted strong Q3 results across the Healthcare Continuum. In the first half of this year, Lonza reported strong momentum with organic growth of 8 percent (like-for-like) sales and 11 percent CORE EBITDA. The company’s businesses along the healthcare continuum achieved double-digit organic sales growth.