Swiss con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er Lon­za record­ed growth in its lat­est re­sults post­ed for 2022, but it ex­pects some slow­down for Covid sales.

Ac­cord­ing to the man­u­fac­tur­er on Wednes­day, it re­port­ed sales of CHF 6.2 bil­lion ($6.7 bil­lion), a growth in sales of 15%. The fi­nan­cial boost was a re­sult of a com­bi­na­tion of its gen­er­al busi­ness per­for­mance and a “Covid-re­lat­ed sales peak” last year, which gave a lift to its sales and mar­gin.

A Lon­za spokesper­son said in an email to End­points News that the sales growth in 2022 is due to op­er­at­ing in an “at­trac­tive in­dus­try.” The man­u­fac­tur­er man­aged to rope in 115 new cus­tomers and around 375 new clin­i­cal and com­mer­cial pro­grams, ul­ti­mate­ly bring­ing its num­ber of cus­tomers to 790.

For this year, Lon­za will be en­gag­ing in a share buy­back pro­gram of up to CHF 2 bil­lion ($2.2 bil­lion). Ac­cord­ing to the Lon­za spokesper­son, the buy­back is in­tend­ed to re­turn “ex­cess cap­i­tal” back to share­hold­ers. The buy­back is ex­pect­ed to start some­time in the first half of this year and be com­plet­ed in 2025.

“[The buy­back] does not im­pact our ca­pa­bil­i­ty to de­liv­er on our cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion, which fo­cus­es on in­vest­ment in or­gan­ic growth, sup­port­ed by bolt-on ac­qui­si­tions when rel­e­vant op­por­tu­ni­ties arise,” the spokesper­son’s email said.

Lon­za’s out­look for the rest of the year in­cludes a “high sin­gle-dig­it” sales growth as it ex­pects a re­duc­tion in Covid-re­lat­ed sales growth, fol­low­ing a “peak” last year.

“Look­ing to 2023, we will con­tin­ue to grow the com­pa­ny while build­ing our cus­tomer pipeline and dri­ving op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence. We will re­main fo­cused on ex­e­cut­ing our growth plans and pur­su­ing new projects. We are al­so pleased to con­firm our Mid-Term Guid­ance 2024, sup­port­ed by new ca­pac­i­ty com­ing on­line and ro­bust in­dus­try fun­da­men­tals,” said Lon­za CEO Pierre-Alain Ruffieux in a state­ment.

While the con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er man­aged to ex­pand its phys­i­cal foot­print last year, the spokesper­son did not give End­points any de­tails for any new projects at this time. Lon­za’s ex­pan­sion in the US in­clud­ed cap­ping off an ex­pan­sion in Bend, OR, called the Ear­ly Phase Clin­i­cal Man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty. Lon­za added the new fa­cil­i­ty to its small mol­e­cules site that al­so serves as its cen­ter of ex­cel­lence for bioavail­abil­i­ty en­hance­ment and in­haled de­liv­ery for its small mol­e­cules busi­ness unit. The new, mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar, 13,000-square-foot fa­cil­i­ty in­cludes sev­en GMP pro­cess­ing suites.

Mean­while, on its home turf in Switzer­land, Lon­za will be con­struct­ing a CHF 500 mil­lion, or $519 mil­lion, large-scale com­mer­cial drug fill-fin­ish fa­cil­i­ty in Stein, which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2026. The fa­cil­i­ty will al­so be con­struct­ed on the same cam­pus as Lon­za’s cur­rent clin­i­cal drug prod­uct fa­cil­i­ty.

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.

A handful of CDMOs have made changes at the top over the past few weeks, including Genezen and Curia.

That also includes Australian CDMO BioCina, which announced last week that Mark Womack would be taking the helm. Womack previously served as chief business officer at AGC Biologics, CEO of Indian manufacturer Stelis Biopharma and most recently, CEO at CDMO KBI Biopharma and Selexis SA.

BioCina completed the takeover of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Adelaide in 2021 and is now prepping for wider growth. Endpoints News sat down with Womack to discuss his new role, plans for the future, and how to compete in the wider CDMO market. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Abbott is renewing its concussion awareness campaign, weeks after the company received FDA clearance for its lab-based traumatic brain injury (TBI) blood test.

The unbranded campaign features three generations of the Melon family — animated talking melons who slip on toys or take a spill while playing pickleball.

“Don’t mess with your melon. If you hit it, get it checked,” a narrator says.