Sartorius Stedim Biotech Expands Portfolio by Adding Cell Culture Media

Sartorius Stedim Biotech (SSB), a leading international pharmaceutical and biotech supplier, today announced a substantial expansion of its product array in the cell culture range. The company signed a cooperation agreement with the Swiss-based life science group Lonza on long-term, global collaboration in the field of cell culture media. Cell culture media are growth substances and nutrients for cells or microorganisms and are required in every biopharmaceutical manufacturing process.

The cooperation agreement provides that SSB will assume global sales and marketing of Lonza’s media and buffers used in the manufacture of protein-based therapeutics and vaccines, while Lonza will continue to carry out development, manufacture and logistics operations for these products. New product development will be mutually performed. The cell culture media, which are usually sold in liquid or powder form to biopharmaceutical customers, are to be successively converted to packaged forms as ready-to-use, prefilled SSB sterile single-use bags. Furthermore, Lonza and SSB have agreed that these cell culture media will be sold under both brands in a co-branding arrangement.

In fiscal 2011, Lonza generated revenue of around 20 million euros with its cell culture media business. SSB will take over Lonza’s commercial team of approximately 15 media specialists. Both parties have agreed not to disclose further contractual conditions.

Lonza’s cell culture media represent an ideal fit with the portfolio of products supplied by Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which already offers bioreactors and single-use bags and containers as key components for cell cultivation. “I am very pleased that we will now be adding a market-leading, high-quality array of media and buffers to our product offering,” commented SSB’s Member of the Board of Directors, Reinhard Vogt. “Just like our single-use bags and bioreactors, culture media are critical to the success of safe and efficient manufacture of drug materials. The demand for ready-to-use and innovative products is accordingly high. In 2 the manufacture of biologicals, our customers will benefit from obtaining fully integrated single-use solutions for their entire cell culture process all from a single source.”

“For Lonza this agreement provides great upside potential as it will allow us to capture additional value from our Media Business in the form of additional revenue leading to higher capacity utilization”, comments Lukas Utiger, COO of Lonza Bioscience. “Lonza and Sartorius are a great fit as both partners bring complementary strengths to the benefit of our customers.”