Lonza appoints Richard Ridinger as new CEO

3 April 2012 – At a meeting on 2 April 2012, the Board of Directors of Lonza elected Mr. Richard Ridinger as the new CEO of Lonza. Mr. Ridinger will become CEO of Lonza effective 1 May. Rolf Soiron was acting CEO ad interim, since the end of January.

Richard Ridinger is 53 years old, a German national, and has extensive industrial leadership experience. “Richard Ridinger could be a person who grew up with Lonza”, said Rolf Soiron. “He is a chemical engineer who knows our industries, customers and products. With Richard Ridinger, we were not only able to attract a man of action and team player, but also a winning personality.”

Richard Ridinger has held numerous leadership functions at Henkel for 14 years and Cognis for 11 years. Most recently, Mr. Ridinger was responsible for Care Chemicals, the largest sector at Cognis with approximately 3,000 employees. During his tenure, sales increased by 60% to €1.75 billion over six years, as he successfully repositioned the business in the market. Mr. Ridinger’s experience spans process development, production management, product- and marketing management of different product areas, leading global business units and finally the co-responsibility for leading a worldwide group of the specialty chemicals.

In working together with the private equity owners of Cognis, Richard Ridinger has proven his ability to achieve business excellence as well as to fulfill strategic and economical goals. Following the takeover of Cognis by BASF at end of 2010, Richard Ridinger supported the integration of the company.

As CEO of Lonza, Mr. Ridinger has been mandated with strengthening Lonza’s market position in relevant markets, strengthening competitive capabilities, and productivity improvement in critical areas. Productivity improvement includes project “Visp Challenge”, which is expected to contribute more than CHF 100 million over three years, and it also includes a review of group-wide structures. The goal of these measures is a stepwise improvement of growth and return on capital.

At the 2 April meeting, the Board of Directors also appointed Mr. Marc Funk, Group General Counsel and Board Secretary, to become a member of the Management Committee. Marc Funk joined Lonza in January 2009; prior he was associate general counsel at Merck Serono.

About Lonza

Lonza is one of the world’s leading suppliers to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries. Products and services span its customers’ needs from research to final product manufacture. It is the global leader in the production and support of active pharmaceutical ingredients both chemically as well as biotechnologically. Biopharmaceuticals are one of the key growth drivers of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Lonza has strong capabilities in large and small molecules, peptides, amino acids and niche bioproducts which play an important role in the development of novel medicines and healthcare products. Lonza is also the world leader in microbial control providing innovative, chemistry-based and related solutions to destroy or to selectively inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms. Its activities encompass the areas of water treatment, personal care, health and hygiene, industrial preservation, materials protection, and wood treatment. In addition, Lonza is a leader in cell-based research, endotoxin detection and cell therapy manufacturing. Furthermore, the company is a leading provider of value chemical and biotech ingredients to the nutrition and agro markets.

Lonza is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and secondary listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (“SGX-ST”). Lonza is not subject to the SGX-ST’s continuing listing requirements. Lonza is subject to the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange, which do not have specific requirements equivalent to the listing rules of the SGX-ST in respect of interested person transactions, acquisition and realizations, and delisting. In 2011, the company had sales of CHF 2.69 billion. Further information can be found at www.lonza.com.