Catalent has made a series of strategic investments totaling $652 million-plus to enhance the company capabilities in oral prescription and biologic products. Sherief Shaaban, Vice President, Strategic Ventures & Global Partners, Catalent, provided an update at the DCAT Member Company Announcement Forum on March 20, 2023, at DCAT Week.  

A key piece of the company’s investment plan was its $475-million acquisition of Metrics Contract Services, a Greenville, North Carolina-based CDMO of oral solid dosage forms. The acquisition, which was completed in October 2022, has since been integrated into the company’s network and added to Catalent’s oral solid dose development and manufacturing capabilities and potent-handling capabilities. With the acquisition, Catalent gained a 330,000-square-foot facility in Greenville, North Carolina, with fit-for-scale capacity for small to mid-sized batch projects, including for projects in oncology and rare diseases. The facility provides formulation development, analytical testing, commercial manufacturing, and packaging. 

Catalent is also expanding its biologics segment with multiple new commercial-scale facilities for cell and gene therapies, including: a new plasmid DNA manufacturing facility in Gosselies, Belgium, scheduled for opening in March 2023; a commercial-scale cell-therapy manufacturing facility in Gosselies, Belgium, which opened in December 2022; and a cell-therapy development and manufacturing facility in Princeton, New Jersey.  

In addition to these investments, Catalent is expanding stand-alone biologics analytical services to support increased demand and assay requirements for traditional biotherapeutics and advanced modalities. A new dedicated 80,000-ft² analytical facility in Durham, North Carolina, is scheduled to open in the summer of 2023. In addition, the company is investing $12 million to add two analytical laboratories at its site in Kansas City, Missouri, which are scheduled to open in the summer of 2023. 

The company is also expanding packaging and pre-filled syringe capabilities at its facility in Anagni, Italy, to support late-phase clinical and commercial sterile injectable programs. The latest expansion includes the addition of a new high-speed syringe-filling line under isolator at its site in Anagni, Italy, which is scheduled to be GMP-ready in mid-2023. The company is also adding two new high-speed syringe-filling lines under isolator at its site in Bloomington, Indiana, which is expected to be GMP-ready in 2024.