Lonza has appointed Samanta Cimitan as chief commercial officer, senior vice president and a member of its Extended Executive Committee, creating a role intended to strengthen customer engagement and establish a unified commercial approach across the company.
Cimitan will join the contract development and manufacturing organization by Jan. 1, 2027. She currently serves as chief executive officer of Celonic Group, a biologics-focused CDMO.
In the newly created role, Cimitan will lead strategic enterprise account management, global marketing and commercial excellence. She will have direct commercial responsibility for Lonza’s strategic accounts and will help develop a harmonized go-to-market approach across the company’s One Lonza strategy.
Lonza said the role is designed to make its end-to-end offering easier for customers to access and navigate globally across its three business platforms. The company aims to use the structure to connect customers with its science, technology and manufacturing capabilities throughout the development and manufacturing process.
Cimitan brings experience in commercial strategy, customer-partnership development and operational execution in the CDMO sector. At Celonic, she has led the company’s evolution into a focused biologics CDMO and strengthened its commercial, operational, regulatory and innovation capabilities, Lonza said.
She previously spent almost 13 years at Lonza in commercial and strategy leadership positions. Her prior roles included vice president of Lonza Group Operations Strategy, where she developed and led transformation programs spanning commercial operations, research and development, and operations.
Wolfgang Wienand, Lonza’s chief executive officer, said the appointment is a further step in implementing the company’s One Lonza strategy.
Wienand said Cimitan’s industry expertise, commercial leadership experience and familiarity with Lonza will help the company develop trusted partnerships, execute with commercial discipline and create value across customers’ development and manufacturing journeys.
He said Lonza’s objective is for every customer to benefit from the breadth of its capabilities as they work to translate new innovations into therapies for patients.
Lonza did not announce a successor for Cimitan at Celonic or disclose further changes to its executive leadership structure. The company also did not provide financial terms related to the appointment or specific performance targets for the new commercial organization.