Satisfying work but it can be overwhelming - Anonymous employee Lonza Employee Review

2.0
9 May 2010
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The opportunity to work with small biotech and large pharmaceutical companies. The work can be satisfying. There are some genuinely great people that work there. Portsmouth site management is now stable and for the most part isn't bad.

Cons

Heavy work load, due to being under-resourced, people tend to work plenty of overtime to get the job done. Many people have to work at a level above their pay grade. Timelines are usually very tight, many people are overwhelmed and stressed. Salary and benefits are poor and promotions are rare and overdue for a lot of people - the Lonza rewards points scheme is a poor substitution. There continues to be a blame culture. Professional / career development tends to be ignored by management. Morale is pretty low for said reasons though departmental management seems to be totally oblivious to this. There is massive potential for regrettable turnover and it is already started to happen.

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5.0
8 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Diverse opportunities across departments as one wanted

Cons

Provide decent pay and benefits

2.0
23 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Compensation (for higher level associates/senior management positions)

Cons

1) Work/life balance - leaders don't honor paid time off. Many teams expect you to be available during paid time off periods 2) Benefits - employer doesn't offer employer-subsidized vision insurance 3) Holidays - employer doesn't offer MLK Day and Juneteeth as paid days off, indicating how little they value diversity, inclusion, and belonging 4) Promotions - political; not based on merit 5) Mandated 5 day return-to-office to enable "in person collaboration" while at the same time offshoring jobs to cheaper markets. 6) PTO - based on tenure, but I think Lonza prefers high turnover so they don't have to give people time off (if they even honor it in the first place - see con 1) 7) Lack of harmonization - for an established CDMO, I was surprised at the level of misalignment between sites and the lack of standardization of processes

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