Integrated healthcare solutions supplier Lonza revealed plans Monday to invest CHF 20 million, or about $21.7 million, to expand the API development and manufacturing capabilities at its production site in Nansha, China.

The new mid-scale manufacturing assets at the Nansha site will support the transition of products under development to large-scale production. During the project, the company said it will install three 1,000L GMP trains with a combined reactor volume of 12m3 and new development and GMP laboratories that can produce small-scale batches of highly potent APIs (HPAPIs), as well as six 1,000L small molecule reactors, four 1,500L vessels and isolation equipment.

“Increasing our capabilities by adding mid-scale API manufacturing at our site in Nansha will benefit our customers, and especially the many global emerging biotech companies we partner with,” said Jan Vertommen, senior director, Commercial Development at Lonza, in a release. “These companies need cost-effective, seamless ways to move small molecule compounds from early-phase to commercial according to global quality and regulatory standards, and these expanded facilities at our Nansha site are designed to help them do so.”

Scientists and engineers at the facility will develop and manufacture APIs for customers around the world. The investment in the site is expected to add 70 new jobs to its current headcount of 250 workers.

“Global pharma and biotech companies are increasingly looking to China, both for development and manufacturing of global products and in some cases for greater access to clinical trials conducted in China,” Gordon Bates, president of Lonza’s Small Molecules division, said in a statement. “With these expanded capabilities at our Nansha site, we aim to support the next generation of innovative and life-saving drug development with our customers around the world.”

Lonza expects the new assets to come online between Q1 2022 and Q3 2022.

Last December, the company said it was launching a project to boost the particle engineering and drug production capabilities of its Bend, OR cGMP manufacturing plant.