Chr. Hansen and Lonza’s newly branded joint venture, BacThera, receives anti-trust approvals to start contract manufacturing of live biotherapeutic products

Chr. Hansen Holding A/S, a leading global bioscience company, and Lonza AG, a leading pharma contract manufacturing company, announce today that they have received the relevant approvals from anti-trust regulators needed to establish the 50/50 joint venture in the emerging market for live biotherapeutic products, which was originally announced in Company Announcement No. 04 on April 2, 2019.

Going forward the joint venture will operate under the name BacThera from its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. BacThera is a combination of the words bacteriology, therapeutic and era – clearly reflecting the company’s purpose to enable its customers to bring life-changing treatments to patients and pioneer the live biotherapeutic industry. Now approved to start operations, BacThera is engaging with its first customers.

Over the coming months BacThera will upgrade existing facilities in Hørsholm, Denmark, and equip new facilities in Basel, Switzerland to serve pre-clinical to phase II projects. Further facilities for phase III and commercial manufacturing will be developed as the pipeline matures. Overall, EUR 90 million will be invested, shared equally between Chr. Hansen and Lonza, over a period of three years and BacThera is expected to be largely self-funding after that.