Lonza agreed to acquire five US CDMO manufacturing sites from Merck KGaA, expanding its footprint from four to nine sites and adding about 1,100 employees. The deal, valued in the low- to mid-triple-digit millions of Swiss francs, is expected to close in mid-2027. Lonza said the acquisition strengthens end-to-end capabilities in the US, including clinical and commercial development and manufacturing for bioconjugation payload-linkers and viral vectors. Merck KGaA will retain its life-science consumables and BioReliance Contract Testing Services, while shifting away from CDMO operations. The transaction reflects continued capacity buildout in ADC and cell-and-gene therapy supply chains, where US manufacturing scale is increasingly part of customer procurement decisions.