Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Lonza have announced a multi-year expansion of their existing biologics manufacturing agreement. The contract expansion will include the production of commercial quantities of a second Bristol-Myers Squibb biologic medicine at Lonza’s mammalian manufacturing facility in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Biologic medicines that treat serious diseases are an integral part of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s specialty care portfolio and R&D pipeline. Bristol-Myers Squibb and Lonza have been collaborating since 2003 to produce commercial supplies of a biologics medicine marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb worldwide. Currently, Lonza also produces clinical supplies of an investigational biologics medicine for Bristol-Myers Squibb.

“Our expanded relationship with Lonza is an important example of our global manufacturing strategy to meet anticipated demand for our commercial biologics portfolio and prepare to bring our late-stage clinical assets to patients by supplementing our in-house manufacturing capabilities,” said Lou Schmukler, president, Global Manufacturing & Supply, Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Lonza’s development and manufacturing facilities offer proven expression systems and established platform processes for streamlined scale-up throughout the clinical pipeline. In addition to its state-of-the-art Portsmouth facility, Lonza offers three additional clinical-to-commercial mammalian production facilities in Tuas, Singapore; Porrino, Spain; and Slough, United Kingdom.

“We are pleased to extend our relationship with Bristol-Myers Squibb for the commercial production of their innovative drug substance, said Marc Funk, COO of Lonza’s Pharma & Biotech Segment. “This reinforces Lonza’s mission to support life-saving medicines by being a reliable supplier of drug substance for our customers with high-quality commercial GMP manufacturing services delivered to the market.