Business Concentrates OUTSOURCING
Lonza forms microbiome venture
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Swiss contract manufacturer and Chr. Hansen partner to target emerging $200 million market No such drugs are yet on the market, Lonza and the Danish food cultures and enbut by 2025 the supply of anaerobic mizymes producer Chr. Hansen have formed crobes for pharmaceutical trials will be a joint venture to make live therapeutic worth about $200 million annually, Funk microbes for the nascent microbiome drug says. By 2035, he forecasts, sector. It is the first and only the overall clinical trial company in the world to offer end-to-end contract Clinical trials of microbes and commercial market will be worth more than manufacturing services for are already underway. $1.1 billion. live biotherapeutics, Lonza Initially, the partners will CEO Marc Funk says. Preclinical: 60 put a combined $50 million Some of the microbes Phase I: 20 in the joint venture to meet populating the intestine, Phase II: 11 demand from precommerPhase III: 5 which constitute the bulk cial projects. Starting in of the human microbiome, about 2022, they will invest may have therapeutic efBy 2025 the contract a further $50 million to exfects and could be used manufacturing market for pand capacity to make comthe microbiome is forecast to treat gastrointestinal mercial microbial drugs. to be worth $200 million diseases as well as some The venture will start cancers, liver diseases, and out with a staff of 50, 10 of more. Source: Lonza.
Bugs as drugs
whom will come from the partners, rising to about 120 from 2022. Chr. Hansen’s role in the venture will be to evaluate microbe strains and produce them in its fermenters near Copenhagen, Denmark. Lonza will formulate the microbes and place them in capsules at its facilities in Basel, Switzerland, where the venture will also be based. Lonza says the venture will use the enTRinsic capsule technology developed by Capsugel, a firm it acquired in 2017. It features a structural mesh inside a polymer shell that protects the microbes from acids in the stomach and ensures reliable release in the intestine. The microbiome initiative is part of a broader trend for contract manufacturers to pursue emerging classes of biological drugs, such as those used in gene therapy. Thermo Fisher Scientific plans to enter the business of making viral vectors for gene therapy by acquiring Brammer Bio for $1.7 billion.—ALEX SCOTT
APRIL 8, 2019 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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