July 22 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s Lonza, the world’s largest contract drug manufacturer, raised the full-year target for its core profit margin to between 33% and 34% on Wednesday, citing strong operational execution and contributions from maturing growth projects.
It had previously expected its core earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margin to expand to more than 32% of sales this year.
In the first half of 2026, Lonza’s main contract drug manufacturing business saw its core EBITDA grow 27.4% in constant currency to 1.17 billion Swiss francs ($1.44 billion).
Lonza is aiming to focus solely on contract manufacturing, having agreed to sell its capsule and health ingredients business to Lone Star Funds in May.
Analysts had projected slightly lower EBITDA of 1.13 billion francs for the core business, a poll compiled by Vara showed.
Lonza said it expected the first-half performance to underpin another solid full-year result, with growth and profitability in the second half of the year expected to moderate due to the timing of business activities, particularly in its advanced synthesis unit, and tougher year-ago comparisons.
($1 = 0.8128 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Bartosz Dabrowski and Kira Britten, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
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