Sartorius, Lonza join hands for cell culture media

Singapore: Sartorius Stedim Biotech (SSB), a leading international pharmaceutical and biotech supplier, has signed a co-operation agreement with Swiss-based life science group Lonza on long-term, global collaboration in the field of cell culture media. Cell culture media are growth substances and nutrients for cells or microorganisms and are required in every biopharmaceutical manufacturing process.

According to the co-operation agreement, SSB will assume global sales and marketing of Lonza's media and buffers, used in the manufacturing of protein-based therapeutics and vaccines, while Lonza will continue to carry out development, manufacture and logistics operations for these products. New product development will be mutually performed. The media will be sold under both brands in a co-branding arrangement.

"I am very pleased that we will now be adding a market-leading, high-quality array of media and buffers to our product offering," commented SSB's member of the board of directors, Mr Reinhard Vogt. "Just like our single-use bags and bioreactors, culture media are critical to the success of safe and efficient manufacture of drug materials. The demand for ready-to-use and innovative products is accordingly high. In the manufacture of biologicals, our customers will benefit from obtaining fully integrated single-use solutions for their entire cell culture process all from a single source."

"For Lonza this agreement provides great upside potential as it will allow us to capture additional value from our media business in the form of additional revenue leading to higher capacity utilization", comments Mr Lukas Utiger, COO of Lonza Bioscience. "Lonza and Sartorius are a great fit as both partners bring complementary strengths to the benefit of our customers."