The work done at local pill-maker Bend Research is in demand by bigger and bigger players in the contract pharmaceutical industry.

Swiss giant Lonza Group has agreed to buy Bend Research parent Capsugel for $5.5 billion, the companies announced Thursday. In pitching the deal to its investors, Lonza is playing up the spray-dried dispersion process Bend Research developed before it was acquired by Capsugel for an undisclosed sum in 2013. Capsugel proceeded to invest more than $25 million in a new Bend facility, which opened in 2015 and now employs about 350 people here.

“We expect our colleagues at Capsugel’s Bend, Oregon, facility will help drive this combined company’s enhanced position as a global leader in the (contract development and manufacturing) space,” a Capsugel spokesman said in an email.

To be sure, Bend Research is not the only Capsugel asset that Lonza wants to add to its portfolio.

The two companies combined have 53 facilities and 13,400 employees around the world. Yet the first example of Capsugel’s innovation that Lonza offered in an investor presentation was spray-dried dispersion, which makes it easier for the human body to absorb certain active pharmaceutical ingredients.

More than 50 percent of marketed drugs have active ingredients with low solubility, according to the Lonza presentation, and more than 90 percent of new compounds have the same or similarly challenging chemistry.

Major contract pharmaceutical firms are jockeying to become the go-to service provider for brand-name drugmakers. That’s resulted in a lot of acquisitions of small specialty firms and consolidation. One of Lonza’s top competitors, Patheon, took its stock public in July after a several-year run of acquisitions that included Agere Pharmaceuticals in Bend, which was founded by former Bend Research scientists. Agere also offers spray-dried dispersion to drugmakers, though on a smaller scale.

Lonza, which had roughly $4.6 billion in revenue last year, works in a variety of industries beyond pharmaceuticals, including personal care, industrial and agricultural, but the Capsugel acquisition beefs up its health care segment.

Capsugel will add $1 billion in revenue to Lonza’s $2.2 billion health care segment, creating a company that would outweigh Patheon and another competitor, Catalent, according to Lonza’s investor presentation.

In its announcement, Lonza said it expects to save money in corporate, procurement and information-technology functions. It’s too early to state whether the acquisition will mean layoffs, Lonza said in a list of answers to frequently asked questions posted at Thefuturelonza.com.

Lonza stock is traded on the SIX Swiss exchange. Capsugel is owned by New York private equity firm KKR&Co.

— Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com