Joint Venture First to Offer Seamless Manufacturing of Microbiome Therapies

Lonza, a Swiss pharma supplier, and Chr. Hansen, a Danish supplier of bacterial products, are teaming up to enter the promising microbiome space. Together, the two companies will invest €90M in the creation of the first company that will offer a full supply chain to produce treatments made of live bacteria.
Their 50/50 joint venture will have its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. The money will be spent on creating medical-grade production facilities for live biotherapeutic products, by upgrading existing facilities in Hørsholm, Denmark and equipping new facilities in Basel.
In recent years, scientists have become aware of the huge impact the bacteria living in and on our bodies - the human microbiome - has on health conditions ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to cancer. A growing number of companies have been created in the last decade seeking to treat the human microbiome, and a large proportion of them aim to do so with therapies consisting of a beneficial bacterial strain.