Teva, Lonza discontinue joint venture

JERUSALEM—Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Lonza Grouphave announced that, having conducted a strategic review of the Teva-LonzaJoint Venture, the companies have decided to discontinue their collaboration todevelop, manufacture and market biosimilars. Teva and Lonza will continue toexamine their options in order to maximize the value of the investments andadvancement that have taken place under the auspices of the joint venture.

Dissolving the Teva-Lonza Joint Venture will allow bothcompanies to refocus their individual strategies and efforts. Teva will beredirecting its efforts into pursuing its biologics strategy.

"Teva has a track record of success in the biologics arenaand we plan to continue and build on that success," Dr. Michael Hayden,president of Global R&D and chief scientific officer of Teva, commented ina statement. "This decision supports our ability to maintain a highly selectiveapproach in our efforts to create a balanced portfolio of biosimilars,biobetters and innovative biologics that align with our overall portfolio andareas of disease focus, and by doing so better support our patients in theseareas."

For its part, Lonza plans to concentrate on its coreexpertise in contract manufacturing and cell line development, and will ceaseinvestment in non-strategic areas.

"With the discontinuation of the joint venture, we willcease investing in areas that are not strategic to Lonza, such as clinicaldevelopments and end-product commercialization," Dr. Stephan Kutzer, chief operationalofficer of Lonza Pharma & Biotech Market Segment, said in a press release."In our assessment, those investments in biosimilar will require more capitalthan initially planned and will also take more time until they reach themarket. This is why we intend in the future to limit our role by focusing onour core expertise in the areas of contract manufacturing and cell linedevelopment."

Teva and Lonza's joint venture was originally announced inJanuary 2009, with the partners planning to cooperate for the development,manufacture and marketing of affordable, efficacious and safe genericequivalents of selected biologic pharmaceuticals. No financial details weredisclosed.

The same day that Teva and Lonza announced the dissolutionof their joint venture, Lonza also announced that two of its market segments,Specialty Ingredients and Pharma&Biotech, performed better than expected ona CORE EBIT basis for the first half of this year. Among the changes thecompany has made include the decision to consolidate its Microbial Biologicsassets and activities in its Visp site, and the associated phasing down of itsMicrobial Biologics plant in Hopkinton, Mass. Lonza noted that thediscontinuation of the joint venture will reduce the company's committed investmentsby more than 150,000,000 million Swiss francs (approximately $161.1 million) over the next three years.

Richard Ridinger, CEO of Lonza, noted in a press releasethat with regards to the various strategic actions the company is undertaking,"our aim is to secure Lonza's long-term sustainable growth and to serve ourcustomers with a sound and innovative portfolio and the most robust andefficient network possible. I am confident these changes will get us there."

SOURCE: Lonza press release