(Reuters) -Lonza, a Swiss company that makes drugs for other companies, said that strong demand from biopharmaceutical companies caused its first-half core earnings to rise by 16.5%.
First-half core earnings (EBITDA), which take into account interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, went up to 987 million Swiss francs ($1.02 billion), the company said in a statement on Friday. This was more than the 940 million francs that analysts had expected.
Lonza said that it was still aiming for sales growth in the “low to mid-teens” this year, excluding currency fluctuations, and an increase in the core EBITDA margin, from 30.8 percent in 2021 to 33 percent to 35 percent in 2024.
The company is putting in a lot of money over a number of years to help drug developers bet on new therapeutic proteins and cell and gene therapies. Under the plan, Lonza said earlier this month that it would spend 500 million Swiss francs to put biotech drugs into vials in Switzerland.
The company, which is a key supplier to Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), a company that makes vaccines, is counting on long-term growth in the biopharmaceutical industry, even after the pandemic is over.
