Why Drugmakers Are Selling Plants to Contract Manufacturers
Large drugmakers are selling working plants to contract manufacturers, and the pace picked up in 2026 [1]. The buyer gets ready capacity, trained staff and regulatory approvals. The seller usually keeps buying product from the site, so the plant changes owners without going quiet [1][2].
Lonza's November 2026 deal for five US sites from Merck KGaA is the latest example [3]. This explainer looks at the deals behind the trend, what drives them, what the terms reveal and what they mean for people who work in manufacturing, quality and business development.
A wave of plant sales
Contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) make drugs for other companies. They have long grown by building new plants. A growing share of their expansion now comes from buying plants that a drug company built for itself.
GlobalData, which tracks outsourcing deals each month, counted three pharma-to-CDMO plant agreements between March 15 and April 15, 2026 [1]. In the eight months before March 15, it found only two deals of this type [1]. Its analyst wrote that such deals can give drugmakers more flexibility to reshape their US manufacturing footprints [1].
The deals cover very different kinds of manufacturing:
- Biologics drug substance. Samsung Biologics bought GSK's plant in Rockville, Maryland [2]. Celltrion, a South Korean biosimilar maker, bought Eli Lilly's plant in Branchburg, New Jersey [1][4].
- Sterile fill-finish. Rois, the contract manufacturing arm of Rovi, bought a Bristol Myers Squibb injectables plant in Phoenix [5]. Adragos Pharma bought a Sanofi site near Paris [6]. Thermo Fisher completed its purchase of a Sanofi fill-finish and packaging site in Ridgefield in the US [1].
- Advanced modalities. Lonza is buying sites for antibody-drug conjugates, viral vectors and lipid nanoparticles from Merck KGaA [3].
Not every buyer is buying from a drug company. Siegfried, a CDMO based in Zofingen, Switzerland, agreed in January 2026 to buy three small molecule drug substance sites from an affiliate of the investment firm SK Capital Partners [7]. That deal shows the same appetite for existing capacity, even where the seller is a financial owner.
Why drugmakers sell
A plant is expensive to own when it runs below capacity. Its staff, quality systems and maintenance cost about the same whether it makes one product or five. A drug company that needs only part of a site carries the rest as overhead.
A CDMO can fill that spare space with work from other clients. That is the basic logic of most of these deals. In Rockville, Samsung said it will keep supplying GSK with the products previously made there, while also taking on new contract work [2]. Rois will also keep making BMS products in Phoenix, GlobalData reported [1]. The seller keeps its supply and sheds the fixed cost of running the site.
Portfolio focus is the other driver. Merck KGaA is narrowing its life science business, according to Pharmaceutical Executive [8]. JPMorgan analysts called the sale a minor positive for Merck because it sharpens that focus, Reuters reported [9]. Merck's group chief executive, Kai Beckmann, described the deal as another step in the company's medium to long term agenda [3].
Sellers rarely say much about price. Adragos and Sanofi did not disclose terms [6]. Samsung's release on closing gave no price either [2].
Why CDMOs buy rather than build
Building a new biologics or sterile plant takes years. The building must be designed, constructed, qualified and inspected before it can make a single commercial batch. An existing plant has already passed those steps.
The Rois purchase shows what a buyer gets. The Phoenix site covers 370,000 square feet and has received about $100 million in capital investment since 2021 [5]. It already has commercial-scale lyophilization (freeze drying), an area for highly potent cytotoxic drugs, and approvals from the FDA, the European Medicines Agency and Japanese authorities [5]. Rois plans to add a prefilled syringe line by 2027 that should add about 65 million to 70 million syringes a year [5].
Samsung's purchase gave it two cGMP plants with 60,000 litres of drug substance capacity and more than 500 staff [2]. It was the company's first manufacturing site in the US [2]. The deal raised its global capacity by almost 8% to 845,000 litres, GlobalData noted [1].
Lonza's finance chief, Philippe Deecke, said the Merck sites add clinical manufacturing capabilities that Lonza lacked in the US [9]. Buying them is faster than building those capabilities from scratch.
Buying is not instant, though. Celltrion said it would need 12 to 18 months of validation before shifting production to Branchburg [4]. Existing manufacturing contracts at the site were to generate revenue in the meantime [4].
The US manufacturing pull
Most of these deals put capacity in the US. Reuters linked the Lonza deal to President Donald Trump's push for more domestic drug production, as drugmakers commit billions to US manufacturing [9]. GlobalData put the combined US manufacturing plans announced in 2025 by Roche, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson at $155 billion [1].
Celltrion was the most explicit about tariffs. It called the Branchburg purchase a fundamental solution to tariff risk [4]. Its tariff preparations also included stockpiling two years of inventory in the US and expanding domestic contract manufacturing [4]. Once validated, the plant is to supply Celltrion products directly to the US market [4].
Samsung framed its Rockville deal as geographic diversification and a more resilient supply chain [2]. The effect is similar. A company whose other plants sit in South Korea now has a US base for clients who want local supply [2].
Europe still sees deals too. Adragos described the Maisons-Alfort site, in Paris's south-eastern suburbs, as one of Europe's largest plants for sterile injectables [6]. It makes prefilled syringes, liquid vials and freeze-dried vials at industrial scale [6].
What the data shows
The disclosed terms reveal how these deals are priced and how long they take to pay off. The table sets out the main facts from each.
| Deal | Type of capacity | Key disclosed terms |
|---|---|---|
| Lonza buys five Merck KGaA US sites | Bioconjugates, payload-linkers, viral vectors, lipid nanoparticles | About 1,100 staff; about CHF 250 million in 2028 sales; closing mid-2027 [3] |
| Samsung Biologics buys GSK Rockville | Biologics drug substance | 60,000 litres; more than 500 staff; supply to GSK continues [2] |
| Celltrion buys Lilly Branchburg | Biologics drug substance | About 460 billion won ($336 million); 12 to 18 months of validation [4] |
| Rois buys BMS Phoenix | Sterile injectables | 370,000 square feet; about $100 million invested since 2021 [5] |
| Siegfried buys Noramco and Extractas | Small molecule drug substance | Three sites; about 400 staff; below 10 times EV/EBITDA [7] |
Three patterns stand out.
Prices are modest. Lonza said the five Merck sites are valued in the low to mid triple-digit millions of Swiss francs [3]. On its call with investors, it put the price around the midpoint of a range of CHF 100 million to 600 million, Reuters reported [9]. Siegfried put the valuation at less than 10 times enterprise value to EBITDA, a common measure of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization [7]. Celltrion's price was about 460 billion won, or $336 million, with total costs including operating funds of about 700 billion won [4]. Those are small sums next to the $155 billion in US manufacturing plans that four large drugmakers announced in 2025 [1].
Margins take time. Lonza expects the Merck sites to bring in about CHF 250 million in sales in 2028, at a core EBITDA margin below the group's [3]. It does not expect them to reach peak sales at group margin levels until the mid-2030s [3]. Barclays still called the deal strategically positive for Lonza, citing potential gains from higher utilization and improved margins [9]. A bought plant is cheaper than a new one, but filling it with new clients is slow work.
Disclosure is thin. Lonza disclosed only a price range and did not release customer contracts or current site utilization, Pharmaceutical Executive noted [8]. Outsiders cannot tell how full these plants are on the day they change hands. That is the number that decides whether a deal pays off.
How the Lonza deal fits
The Lonza deal shows the full range of what a CDMO now wants. The five sites are in St. Louis, Missouri, for bioconjugates; Madison and Verona, Wisconsin, for highly potent payload-linkers; Carlsbad, California, for viral vectors with aseptic fill-finish; and Indianapolis for lipid nanoparticles, liposomes and PEGylated proteins [3]. The deal takes Lonza from four US sites to nine, and its US workforce to more than 6,000 [3].
The two Wisconsin sites account for much of the capacity, Reuters reported. They make key components for targeted cancer therapies, with facilities for highly potent compounds [9]. Bioconjugates and payload-linkers are the building blocks of antibody-drug conjugates, which link a potent drug to an antibody and need special containment to make safely.
The deal also fits a run of Lonza moves. It bought Roche's biologics plant in Vacaville, California, in 2024 [9]. In March 2026 it agreed to sell its capsules and health ingredients business to Lone Star Funds for CHF 2.3 billion, according to Pharmaceutical Executive [8]. Lonza is paying for the Merck sites in cash from cash on hand and existing credit lines, and says it will keep its BBB+ credit rating [3]. Closing is expected in mid-2027 [3].
What it means for people in the industry
Manufacturing and site staff. In these deals, staff usually move with the plant. About 1,100 Merck employees are set to join Lonza [3]. More than 500 GSK colleagues moved to Samsung in Rockville [2]. Staff at Maisons-Alfort are joining Adragos [6]. Celltrion said it would keep the existing Branchburg workforce [4]. A sale changes the employer, the culture and often the product mix. It does not usually close the site.
Quality and regulatory. A plant that moves from serving one owner to serving many clients needs a different quality system. Each new product is a technology transfer, with its own validation work and regulatory filings. Celltrion's 12 to 18 month validation estimate shows how long that can take for a single company's own products [4]. Quality and validation specialists who have run transfers into a multi-client site will be in demand at these buyers.
Business development and supply chain. For a drugmaker, selling a site and keeping supply through the buyer is now a standard option. Samsung's GSK deal and the Rois BMS deal both kept the seller as a customer [1][2]. For a biotech without its own plants, these deals add US capacity in hard areas such as conjugates, viral vectors and sterile filling [3][5]. Teams should check how much of a bought site's capacity the seller has reserved before counting on it.
Hiring. Sites that add lines, such as the planned syringe line in Phoenix, may need more staff over time [5]. You can follow new openings on PharmoniQ jobs and deal coverage on PharmoniQ news.
Key takeaways
- GlobalData counted three pharma-to-CDMO plant deals in one month of 2026, against two in the previous eight months [1].
- Sellers shed fixed costs and usually keep buying product from the site, as GSK and BMS did [1][2].
- Buyers get approved, staffed capacity faster than they could build it, though validation can still take 12 to 18 months [4].
- Most deals add US capacity, a shift linked to the push for domestic production and to tariff risk [9][4].
- Lonza's five Merck sites take it from four to nine US sites and add about 1,100 staff [3].
- Returns are slow: Lonza does not expect group-level margins from the new sites until the mid-2030s [3].
- Staff generally move with the plant, so a sale changes the employer more often than it ends the jobs [3][2][6].
References
- Pharma's manufacturing reconfigurations provide CDMOs with expansion opportunities. Pharmaceutical Technology (GlobalData), May 12, 2026.
- Samsung Biologics completes acquisition of GSK's manufacturing facility in Rockville, Maryland. Samsung Biologics (via BioSpace), Mar 31, 2026.
- Lonza Signs Agreement to Acquire US CDMO Network from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Significantly Expands its US Presence. Lonza (EQS News), Nov 3, 2026.
- Celltrion finalizes deal to acquire Lilly's New Jersey biologics plant. Pharma Manufacturing, Sep 24, 2025.
- ROIS CDMO Completes U.S. Injectable Facility Acquisition in Arizona. PharmaSource, Apr 2, 2026.
- Adragos Pharma Completes Acquisition of Sanofi's Sterile Fill-Finish Site in France. CHEManager, Apr 1, 2026.
- Siegfried to Acquire Small Molecules Drug Substance Capacity in the US. CHEManager, Jan 27, 2026.
- Lonza to Acquire Five U.S. CDMO Sites From Merck KGaA. Pharmaceutical Executive, Nov 3, 2026.
- Lonza buys 5 sites from Germany's Merck to more than double US footprint. Reuters, Nov 3, 2026.
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Note: This article is general information, not medical, legal, regulatory or investment advice. It was written with AI assistance. Facts come from the sources in the reference list. Check the original source before relying on any detail.