Basel (CH) and Salto (BR), 27 February 2018 – Lonza today announced the inauguration of the new Salto Technology Center (STC) in Salto, near São Paulo (BR).
With 1,600 square meters of area, the STC has 13 research laboratories and offers technical services and product applications, which will allow the development of customized solutions for customers in its six business areas of Biosciences, Consumer Health and Nutrition, Hygiene, Coatings and Composites, Agro Ingredients and Water Treatment.
With its laboratories, training/meeting rooms and support facilities, the laboratory complex will serve as a Center of Excellence to share technologies, ingredients, diagnostic systems and knowledge used in these different business units.
Lonza's CEO Richard Ridinger attended the grand opening ceremony in Salto on 26 February 2018. In his speech to the attendees, he said, "The new Salto Technology Center will join our network of Centers of Excellence around the world and enable us to share knowledge that facilitates the development of products and services aligned with the specific needs of the South American market."
He added, "This concept accelerates the process of developing and transferring new technologies and applications to meet an increasingly demanding and dynamic market while still ensuring high quality standards."
Lonza's STC has state-of-the-art infrastructure and equipment, as well as a multidisciplinary team of highly qualified researchers, including chemists, biologists, microbiologists, pharmacists and agronomists who are in partnership with universities and other national and international research centers.
According to Lonza's technology manager responsible for the project, Mauricio Franzim, the initial investment in the STC was BRL 8 million.
"Our goal is to keep new ideas and opportunities flowing regularly through a framework that allows what we call 'cross-pollination,'" Franzim said. "It will be a place where professionals with different skills and experiences can translate quickly and objectively the needs of our clients and then align them with the legislation of each country and Lonza's global health, safety, environment and sustainability policies. In short, we turn molecules and technologies into products and solutions."
One of the STC's laboratories focuses on microbiology, so it was designed and equipped for the manipulation of fungi, bacteria and algae. In conjunction with the laboratory of Analytical Chemistry, the analyses performed there will include Gas Chromatography (GC), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AA), Ultra Violet (UV) spectrometry and a Genetic Sequencing (GS) platform.
The Genetic Sequencing platform, linked to analytical laboratories and applications, is one of the solutions that Lonza offers to diagnose the root cause of microbiological contamination problems and allows monitoring from the manufacturing plant to the consumer market.