Lonza, headquartered in Basel, also has a major plant in Visp, canton Valais.
Keystone-SDA
Lonza is selling its capsules and health ingredients business to the British private equity firm Lone Star Funds. The deal, worth CHF2.3 billion ($3 billion), is expected to be completed in the second half of 2026.
Lonza will receive CHF1.7 billion in cash immediately and will retain a 40% stake in its capsules and health ingredients (CHI) business, with a preferential right on any future sale, the Basel-based pharma supplier said in a press release on Wednesday.
Lonza plans to use the CHF1.7 billion to finance organic growth, make targeted acquisitions and strengthen its technological and industrial capacities in contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), the statement said.
In addition, CHF500 million will be redistributed to shareholders through a share buyback programme once the initial payment has been received. The total gain from the sale of the CHI division, including the initial product and all future products, should amount to at least CHF3 billion.
More
More
Swiss pharma’s global success meets worries at home
Transformation completed
With the deal, Lonza is wrapping up its strategic transformation into a company fully dedicated to CDMO – the development and manufacture of drugs on behalf of pharmaceutical companies.
Lonza’s 2025 results will be published on April 1, 2026. The CHI division will be classified as a discontinued operation. The firm is forecasting an exceptional non-cash impairment loss of around CHF1.3 billion, including goodwill attributable to the assets of the CHI business.
Adapted from French by AI/dos
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
