Lonza completed its planned expansion of the mid-scale microbial manufacturing facility at its Visp, Switzerland site, which was recently granted a GMP license after a successful audit by Swissmedic, allowing cGMP manufacturing and release of biologics produced using microbial fermentation.
The facility, which provides commercial manufacturing capacity and houses two 4,000L fermenters, incorporates automation principles in its core operations, including an electronic manufacturing execution system and integration of all sensors, according to Michael De Marco PhD, vice president, head of microbial, Lonza.
“Microbial manufacturing is a well-established and a favored option for producing complex proteins. Recent growth in the heterogeneity of the biotech pipeline, alongside the growth of smaller and more complex next-generation molecules, has increased demand for microbial manufacturing capacity,” said De Marco. “This expansion adds to our suite of scales and further strengthens our offering to flexibly adapt to all demand and life cycle scenarios of our customer’s medicines.”
