“The United States is very important … We’re looking at capital investments, organic growth, and potential acquisitions.”
Christian Seufert, Head of Advanced Synthesis, Lonza, on the PharmaSource podcast
On November 3, Lonza announced it will buy five U.S. manufacturing sites from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The deal delivers the third item on his list.
The deal fits One Lonza, the strategy Lonza announced in December 2024 under CEO Wolfgang Wienand, and advances three parts of it: capacity near U.S. customers, a second hub for ADCs and other bioconjugates, and bolt-on acquisitions that fill gaps in the network.
Capacity near U.S. customers
“Customers look for local or regional sourcing solutions to manage economic and geopolitical uncertainties,” explained Seufert in the interview.
Lonza’s investor presentation shows the United States as the one undersupplied region, with Europe in balance and the rest of the world oversupplied. The five sites add bioconjugation, payload-linkers, viral vectors and lipid-based delivery, and bring Lonza to 17 sites on three continents.
Lonza was already building in the U.S. According to GEN, it bought the Vacaville, California, biologics site from Genentech in 2024 for $1.2 billion and announced a commercial spray-drying facility in Bend, Oregon, in September.
Lonza’s regional supply and demand, and what the acquisition adds in the U.S. Source: Lonza investor presentation, November 3, 2026.
A second ADC hub
Bioconjugation accounts for 60 to 70 percent of the acquired sites’ estimated 2026 sales, according to Lonza’s investor presentation. Seufert called it one of the fastest-growing pharma segments and put Lonza’s share at about 50 percent. “For the ADC and bioconjugation offering, growing 20 percent-plus, we’re connecting the dots,” he said. “We go from cell line development all the way through payload manufacturing, conjugation, and fill-and-finish services.”
According to the presentation, Madison and Verona add clinical and commercial payload-linker capacity and St. Louis adds commercial bioconjugation, both alongside Visp in Switzerland. Lonza describes the result as a second ADC manufacturing hub. Both sites join Advanced Synthesis, the platform Seufert leads. Lonza expects bioconjugate pharma sales to grow from about USD 30 billion in 2025 to about USD 110 billion in 2033, roughly 18 percent a year, based on its analysis of Evaluate Pharma data.
Bolt-on M&A under One Lonza
According to Wienand’s letter in the Annual Report 2025, Lonza put One Lonza into its operating model in April 2025 as three platforms: Integrated Biologics, Advanced Synthesis and Specialized Modalities. Seufert described the promise to customers this way: “One Lonza means across our three business platforms and eight modalities, we want to offer clients a seamless experience.”
Lonza’s investor presentation maps acquisitions to each platform. Vacaville added capacity for Integrated Biologics. St. Louis and Madison and Verona diversify the Advanced Synthesis footprint, and Carlsbad and Indianapolis widen the Specialized Modalities offering. The purchase sits next to earlier deals for Redberry and Synaffix and technology access through Nona Biosciences, Qurient and Asimov.
The deal in brief
According to Lonza’s investor presentation, Lonza pays an enterprise value in the low- to mid-triple-digit millions of Swiss francs, in cash, and expects to close in mid-2027. About 1,100 employees transfer. Lonza expects about CHF 250 million of sales from the sites in 2028, roughly 4 percent of its 2025 sales of CHF 6.5 billion, at a positive CORE EBITDA margin that reaches group level by the mid-2030s. The deal does not change its 2026 outlook or its Organic Growth Model.
| Site | Technology | Area | Staff | Lonza platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Louis, MO | Bioconjugation, with expansions under way | ~17,000 m² | 300+ | Advanced Synthesis |
| Madison and Verona, WI | High-potency payload-linkers, 30+ years of expertise | ~20,000 m² | 300+ | Advanced Synthesis |
| Carlsbad, CA | Viral vectors, aseptic fill-finish, operating since 2022 | ~19,000 m² | 150+ | Specialized Modalities |
| Indianapolis, IN | Lipid nanoparticles, liposomes, PEGylated proteins, aseptic fill-finish | ~15,000 m² | 200+ | Specialized Modalities and Integrated Biologics |
Source: Lonza investor presentation, November 3, 2026.
Lonza leads our CDMO news tracker in 2026
Lonza logged 28 announcements in the PharmaSource CDMO Announcement Tracker in 2026 through November 9, double its 14 in 2025. That ranks Lonza as most active in press coverage in 2026, ahead of WuXi Biologics, which topped 2025. By the tracker’s tags, Lonza’s partnership announcements rose from 5 to 15, and its facility expansions from none to five.
Announcements per CDMO in the PharmaSource CDMO Announcement Tracker, 2025 and 2026 to November 9.
The 2026 announcements follow the strategy:
- Pruning the portfolio: agreed to sell Capsules & Health Ingredients to Lone Star for CHF 2.3 billion (March).
- Licensing ADC technology: six deals between May and October, with Bristol Myers Squibb, Stipple Bio, AmMax Bio, InduPro, Engitix and Qurient.
- Adding capacity: a payload-linker expansion (June) and three bioconjugation suites (October) at Visp, and the Oregon spray-drying facility (September).
- Speeding development: a six-month DNA-to-IND offering (June), extended to bispecifics (October), and a Rapid Media Service (August).
- Widening cell and gene technology: the Xcite AAV producer cell line platform (May) and a lentiviral vector partnership with Asimov (October).
Meet Lonza at CDMO Live Europe 2027
Lonza is exhibiting at CDMO Live Europe 2027, May 26 to 27, 2027, at the Rotterdam World Trade Center. Find out more
