Since joining Lonza in the Summer of 2024, I have had the privilege of immersing myself in our business and finding out what makes our company unique. In my first 100 days, I visited ten of our key global sites to meet our people, feel our culture up close, and gain a deep understanding of where we have strengths and where we can make improvements. Across the network, I found a high-performing team deeply committed to serving our customers and their patients – and eager to share and listen to ideas on how to drive our business forward.
This intensive immersion period was invaluable for me in testing my incoming hypotheses, shaping my thinking and defining my future focus areas. As my first 100 days came to a close, I spent the remainder of the year working closely with my global leadership team to define One Lonza, a single business that is united and galvanized by a shared purpose, a new ambitious vision, a concise strategy for our future, and a reshaped operating model best suited to execute upon the strategy.
We approach our next chapter in our journey from a position of strength and confidence. Lonza continues to operate in an attractive and growing market, backed by a sustained pipeline of therapies, and robust investment in emerging technologies to make the medicines of tomorrow. Reflecting on Lonza in 2024, I see a healthy business with significant growth potential, and a clear path to achieve its goals. The foundational work undertaken across the organization this year, alongside a continued focus on delivery, means we are well positioned for an era of structured growth and development in 2025 and beyond.
In 2024, Lonza reported sales of CHF 6.6 billion (-0.2% CER and -2.1% AER compared to the prior year). A CORE EBITDA of CHF 1.9 billion resulted in a robust margin of 29.0%, driven by high demand for commercial CDMO services and strong operational execution. Adjusted for the Covid-related mRNA business and the related termination impact in 2023, underlying sales grew at around 7% in CER and CORE EBITDA margin improved by low-single-digit ppts.
We prioritized direct engagement with our investor community in 2024. Alongside the Full-Year 2023 and Half-Year 2024 reports, we hosted roadshows in Zurich, London, New York, Toronto, Paris, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Stockholm and Copenhagen, and we attended industry conferences in San Francisco, New York and London. In May, we hosted our Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Basel, where more than 40% of our shareholder capital was represented. Then, to end the year in December, we hosted an Investor Update where we gave a detailed insight into our One Lonza strategy and first measures undertaken to bring the strategy to life.
Unveiled at our Investor Update in December, the One Lonza strategy is powered by the Lonza Engine – our unique set of five core competencies that sets us apart: high performance teams; a strong scientific, technological, digital ecosystem; unparalleled customer partnerships; end-to-end execution excellence; and plug-and-play investment and integration capabilities. These five components work in harmony to drive long-term value creation.
As part of our One Lonza strategy, we are evolving the organizational structure for our CDMO business to a simplified set-up with three integrated Business Platforms. The change has been designed to enhance customer proximity, provide scalability for future growth and strengthen our multimodality offering. On 1 April 2025, we will launch our new CDMO structure with three Business Platforms:
This new structure will enable us to balance our revenues, improve synergies between platforms, deepen functional expertise across businesses, strengthen our offerings across technologies, and increase focus on high-growth business areas. We are also elevating the role of key Group Functions, strengthening standardization and harmonization, improving execution capabilities with an increased focus on excellence in asset construction and operation, and balancing M&A alongside organic investment to drive future growth.
To enhance customer and shareholder value through focusing on our CDMO offering, we plan to exit the Capsules & Health Ingredients (CHI) business at the appropriate time. This exit is being carefully planned to meet the interests of our customers, shareholders, and colleagues, and we aim for the exit to support CHI to achieve the highest potential for its business, its colleagues and the customers they serve.
As an executive leadership team, we are confident that these structured and strategic changes will allow us to improve collaboration and performance, enhance our customer experience, and provide a model that is ready to capture future growth and advantage.
As part of our organizational update, we have announced changes to the roles and responsibilities of some Executive Committee (EC) members. Gordon Bates, currently President of our Small Molecules division, will become Head of the Integrated Biologics Platform. Christian Seufert, currently President of Capsules & Health Ingredients, will become Head of the Advanced Synthesis Platform. Daniel Palmacci, currently President of Cell & Gene, will become Head of the Specialized Modalities Platform. Jean-Christophe Hyvert, currently President of Biologics, will become Head of Capsules & Health Ingredients.
I would like to thank these leaders for their continuing contributions to our business, and their flexibility in embracing these positive changes that are designed to align the right leader with the right business.
Our investment strategy focuses on areas of sustained customer demand and market growth, to capture opportunities with attractive margins while minimizing risk. In 2024, our CapEx was 22% of sales, enabling us to maintain an accelerated growth trajectory through a combination of organic growth projects and strategic acquisitions.
In March 2024, Lonza signed an agreement to purchase the Genentech large-scale manufacturing site from Roche for USD 1.2 billion in cash. With a total bioreactor capacity of 330,000 liters, the Vacaville site is one of the largest biologics manufacturing facilities in the world. The acquisition was successfully completed in October. It significantly extends our capacity for mammalian manufacturing in the US, and marks a major milestone in our commitment to deliver long-term value for our customers and shareholders. As part of the deal, we also welcomed around 800 Vacaville colleagues into the Lonza network – bringing a wealth of industry knowledge and large-scale mammalian manufacturing expertise.
Alongside this major acquisition, we continued to execute our large growth projects and invest in organic growth. Bioconjugates – including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) – remains a major area of growth for the Lonza business, and in 2024 we continued to strengthen our end-to-end offering. In October, we extended a long-term agreement with a major global biopharmaceutical partner for commercial-scale manufacture of ADCs, with plans to construct a new suite in Visp (CH). In November, we announced plans to expand bioconjugation capabilities in Visp with two new 1,200L suites. This will double our multipurpose capacity for the launch and commercial supply of bioconjugates, enabling us to capitalize on continued market demand.
Looking to 2025, we will enter the new year with a clear direction towards creating a single and unified One Lonza. We will focus on embedding and executing our One Lonza strategy, driving excellence across functions, and continuing to deliver on our commitments to our customers and their patients.
As I close, I extend my thanks to our global community of 18,500 colleagues for what we have been able to achieve together already in 2024. I have already witnessed an inspiring level of talent, expertise, dedication and passion across the global network, and I look forward to achieving even greater success with our outstanding global One Lonza team in 2025 and beyond.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
