Lonza hikes full-year margin outlook after first half sales grow 11%

22. Jul 2026

(AWP Alliance News) - Lonza Group Ltd on Wednesday reported stronger sales and increased part of its outlook after generating double-digit sales growth across its three business platforms in the first six months of 2026.

The Basel, Switzerland-based company is a contract development and manufacturing organisation focused on serving the healthcare industry.

Earnings before interest and tax jumped 38% to CHF789 million in the first half ended June 30, approximately USD970.6 million, from CHF573 million in the same period a year earlier.

Lonza said its Ebit margin strengthened to 23.4% from 18.9%.

Sales at actual exchange rates grew 11% to CHF3.37 billion from CHF3.03 billion.

Lonza reported double-digit constant exchange rate sales growth "at high profitability" across all three of its business platforms.

Integrated Biologics reported CER sales growth of 10%, Specialised Modalities jumped 23%, and Advanced Synthesis was 28% higher.

"Lonza continues to see healthy momentum in strategic outsourcing activities across both large pharma and biotech customers, supported by the long-term value of partnering with high-quality, broad-capability CDMOs.

"Mammalian provided for the largest absolute growth increment while Bioconjugates, Microbial, Drug Product, Bioscience and Small Molecules delivered particularly high growth rates."

Core earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was 27% higher at CHF1.18 billion from CHF922 million, with the core Ebitda margin at 34.8% versus 30.4% previously.

The company raised its outlook for the full-year.

Lonza now expects its full-year core Ebitda margin to reach 33% to 34%, improving from both the previous forecast of 32% and 31.6% in 2025.

Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Wienand said this upgrade was "supported by sustained business momentum across technologies and geographies, together with the structural improvements across our organisation".

A foreign exchange headwind of around minus 2% to minus 3% is expected on 2026 sales.

"This is largely driven by the full-year effect of the weakening of the US dollar in 2025, which mainly affected H1 2026," Lonza explained. "With a robust natural hedge and Lonza's financial hedging program, margins will only be minimally impacted."

Lonza shares ended 0.2% lower at CHF564.00 each in Zurich on Tuesday.

By Elijah Dale, Alliance News senior reporter Asia-Pacific

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