Lonza to relocate around 40 jobs from Switzerland to India

Around 40 relocations have been confirmed to the Keystone-ATS news agency by both the Unia trade union and canton Valais. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer Lonza plans to relocate around 40 jobs, including some from Visp in canton Valais, to the Indian city of Hyderabad by the end of 2026.

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“Lonza is extending its centralised services model, which currently covers finance, human resources, IT and purchasing, to take on additional functions such as quality (control), supply chain and marketing,” said the Lonza press office, contacted by the Keystone-ATS news agency on Wednesday.

“The employees affected by this restructuring do not benefit from a collective labour agreement but from individual contracts,” Barbara Lanthemann, the industry union secretary at Unia Valais, told Keystone-ATS.

Precise figures not disclosed

“Certain activities and functions will be progressively transferred to our low-cost centres, including some functional positions currently based in Visp,” the multinational said, declining to cite numbers.

The figure of around 40 relocations was confirmed to Keystone-ATS by both the Unia trade union and canton Valais, although the number of employees at the Visp site was not disclosed by the company.

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“The creation of a new centre of excellence in Hyderabad”, after those in Manchester and San José (Costa Rica), “will increase productivity, strengthen our working methods globally and expand access to India’s vast talent pool. This strategic initiative will create scalable and sustainable capabilities, while enabling our core functions to support the short- and long-term financial and growth objectives of our global business,” Lonza said.

Welcome to Hyderabad

The choice to set up in India is no accident. Hyderabad is considered a global hub for IT and technology. The city of over ten million inhabitants is considered a major site for software development, artificial intelligence (AI), the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology. Tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon have made very significant investments there in recent years.

Employees who do not wish to leave canton Valais for India should be offered the possibility of continuing their professional activities in Visp. “Lonza is committed, as far as possible, to finding internal solutions for the employees concerned in Visp and at other sites,” the company said.

“This initiative (Project Orbit) aims to ensure the scalable and sustainable functional support necessary for continued growth of our workforce at our main sites and markets, particularly in the areas of production, manufacturing and associated operational and commercial functions,” Lonza added.

The Basel-based firm has around 4,500 employees in Visp, of whom approximately 1,500 work in production. “This sector is not affected by this relocation,” Lanthemann said.

Adapted from French by AI/sb

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