Swiss group Lonza goes for digital automation

SINGAPORE: Switzerland-based Lonza Group is going ahead with engineering and design services and digital automation architecture and control technologies for a new Lonza biopharmaceutical plant in Singapore.

Lonza, which is a contract manufacturer of monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins has selected Emerson Process Management, a process control and automation company and a business of Emerson, for this project which would be around implementing PlantWeb technologies in the new plant that is expected to be completed in 2010 at a cost of $350 million.

The company added that it has installed the automation architecture in Lonza's first biopharmaceutical plant in Singapore. Following the original project models, employing best practices, and applying the experience gained during design and construction of the original facility, Emerson is expected to reduce Lonza's overall costs for the new plant.

Among other such contracts in the Asia-Pacific region, Emerson has contracts by Shanghai CP Guojian Pharmaceutical Co. in China; Reliance Life Sciences, DSM Anti-Infectives India, and Biocon in India; and Lonza for a prior facility in Singapore.