Worst Company, Terrible Leadership, Steer Clear - Anonymous employee Lonza Employee Review

1.0
28 Aug 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You will learn a lot in a short time (out of necessity, turnover, and lack of appropriate staffing). You will learn about the business side of big pharma Global teams are intelligent and sincere professionals, but severely understaffed. Local site teams are ignorant, unprofessional, and ego-driven.

Cons

Lack of resources Extremely unethical Everything is about the bottom line, profits over people Leadership is corrupt - poor performers stay in positions or get promoted because management doesn't want to deal with performance improvement plans. People get fired over innocent mistakes or misunderstandings. They will "manage you out" if you have a strong quality voice because you aren't "pragmatic" or "flexible" enough for their business deals and customer relations. Sexism, sexual harassment, grooming, and racism is still alive and well. The "good old boys club" is still going strong. The site leadership team feels incredibly entitled and powerful and their egos and competitiveness are immediately apparent. If you know how to play the game you can make it very far in the company - I did - and I still don't have really any positive things to say. You will give them your blood, sweat, tears, marriage, life - and in return they will give you sub-par pay, multiple jobs, no time off, years you can't get back in your life.

Explore other reviews about Lonza

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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