The venture firm announced it had entered into an exclusive agreement with the Switzerland-headquartered contract manufacturing organization (CMO) Lonza this morning. The five-year deal will see Lonza fulfill all process development and GMP production of biological products in the portfolio of companies where Index is the major investor.
According to Dr. Stephan Kutzer, COO Lonza Pharma & Biotech, “this multi-product agreement demonstrates Lonza's ability to offer world-class expression platforms in combination with secure manufacturing capabilities for the complete product lifecycle.”
Kevin Johnson, Partner at Index Ventures said Lonza had been selected in part due to previous antibody products he had worked on in the last 20 years and this deal will enable Index’ asset-centric portfolio companies “to benefit as though they were much larger organisations.”
According to its website, Index has 31 mostly start-up and small biotech Life Science companies in its portfolio.