Lonza: Biotechnology – A Key Ingredient for Success in the Future

Abstract

Lonza began as a small Swiss electricity company and it has successfully adapted to change throughout its history to become a global custom manufacturing company serving the needs of the life-science industry. One of the crucial decisions and changes in its development was the implementation of biotechnology. This article outlines briefly the history of change during Lonza's development, some of the problems that confronted the chemical industry approximately a decade ago and how they affected the area of biotransformation. There are still many chemical reactions that are difficult, inefficient and environmentally unfriendly. Lonza believes that some of these problems can be solved by biotechnology if the biocatalytic platform can be widened and improved so that the biocatalysts can be easily integrated into a chemical process.