Plans to invest $200 million laid down last year will put Catalent in a position to offer commercial manufacturing from its Madison, Wisconsin facility, the CDMO says.

In November 2018, contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Catalent announced its intentions to invest across its two biomanufacturing sites.

The board laid down plans to plough $100 million (€88 million) into its Madison, Wisconsin plant to add a fourth and fifth biomanufacturing train.

Image: iStock/dk_photos

During Catalent’s second quarter FY2019 financial call this week, CEO John Chiminski said a third manufacturing train at Madison, which began operations in April 2018, is likely to exceed a 50% capacity utilization in its first year, The fourth and fifth trains will bring necessary capacity for current and future customers and place the plant in a position to offer commercial production.

“All of the [manufacturing] we do out of our Madison facility is preclinical and clinical work for biologics,” Chiminski told stakeholders.

“We’re putting two 2 x 2000 single-use bioreactors in the fourth and fifth train. And, clearly, that’s going to give us the capability for going commercial with some of these molecules that will require sub-5000 liter bioreactors.”

Indiana investment

The Bloomington, Indiana plant, picked up through Catalent’s acquisition of Cook Pharmica in September 2017, does produce commercial products for Catalent’s customers. As part of the CDMO’s expansion plans, another $100 million is being injected in Bloomington to double capacity.

“We’re probably operating somewhere between 50% and 60% capacity utilization, and what we’re going to be doing is more or less doubling the capacity of Bloomington in the 2021, 2022 timeframe by putting in both syringe and high-speed vial line in some cartridge assembly,” said Chiminski.

According to the firm, the plant manufactures 20 commercial biologics, up from 12 when Catalent took over the reins from Cook.

“So, again, a very robust pipeline there. A lot of approved commercial products and we just want to make sure that we continue to stay ahead of the capacity curve for the growth that we have both in Bloomington and Madison.”

For the second quarter, Catalent reported revenues from its Biologics and Specialty Drug Delivery segment as $184 million. This was up 24% on the same period last year. The firm attributed this to the Cook acquisition and favorable end-customer demand for US-based biologics drug substance.