Lonza, a significant player in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and life science sectors, has announced that it will purchase Genentech's large-scale biologics manufacturing site in Vacaville, California from Roche for $1.2 billion.
The facility in Vacaville is one of the largest biologics manufacturing sites in the world, boasting a bioreactor capacity of about 330,000 liters. As part of the agreement, approximately 750 Genentech employees currently working at the Vacaville site will be given the opportunity to work for Lonza.
Further, Lonza intends to invest around 500 million Swiss francs as capital expenditure to upgrade the Vacaville facility. This will enhance its ability to meet the demand for the forthcoming generation of mammalian biologics treatments. Lonza will also be supplying the products that Roche currently manufactures at the facility, with committed volumes planned to phase out gradually as the site transitions to servicing alternative customers.
The transaction is set to finalize in the second half of 2024. Lonza expects that this acquisition will increase sales growth, prompting it to raise its Mid-Term Guidance estimates for 2024 - 2028 from 11-13% CAGR to 12-15%. The company's Mid-Term Guidance for core EBITDA margin and ROIC, however, remains unchanged.
