Just seven years after doubling its oral medicines plant, Catalent strengthens its name as a production powerhouse by further expansion of the aforementioned plant. The facility of interest is located in Winchester, Kentucky. Catalent claims the facility is being expanded by another 107 thousand square feet of space which is opening up 277 jobs.
Catalent, which is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Company (CDMO), plans to add a couple of buildings to the current plant, which is 190 thousand square feet as is. The construction is expected to be complete by the first month of 2024, and when all is said and done, Catalent will have a production site bigger than five football fields.
According to a release by Catalent, the expansion will improve their highly potent material handling capabilities as well as enhance the containment vault at the site. CDMO also said that the site will be equipped with analytical services and multiple packaging solutions. There will be an increase in capacity for some existing functions like pan coating and dual fill encapsulation.
The aforementioned 277 new hires to be added come the start of 2024, will be in addition to the 650 employees already working at the site.
Since 1992, the inception of Catalent’s Winchester plant, the company has kept on investing in resources for the site. Increased the plant size by 100% in 2015 followed by a $40M injection for installation of brand-new machinery catering to integrated packaging lines and production of stick pack dosage, among other things. Averaging a launch of 5 new products per year in its 30-year life, the Winchester plant has a production capacity of over 3,000,000,000 capsules and tablets per year.
The president of soft gel and oral technologies at Catelent, Aris Gennadios (Ph.D) stated, “We are witnessing a broad increase in demand for manufacturing, and the nature of the development pipeline being strong in both oncology treatments and complex molecules necessitates the expansion of specific capabilities in areas such as highly potent materials handling.”
Catalent gained some prominence after contributing in the production of globally used Covid-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. Since then Catalent hasn’t looked back and has been on an expansion spree, with 2022 being no exception. Using the spotlight to improve their brand and take maximum advantage of their moment.
Towards the end of last month, Catalent unveiled their renovation of Bloomington, Indiana plant which set them back $350M. This opened up one thousand new positions, which the company plans to fill over a few years. This Bloomington expansion is likely to give way to multiple additions like new syringe-filling lines, bioreactors, complex automated packaging, extra freeze-drying capacity, and new quality control labs.
Soon following the expansion of Bloomington site, the company announced its intention to buy the commercial cell therapy site of Erytech Pharma located in Princeton, New Jersey. This cost Catalent a sum of almost $45M. According to the deal, Catalent will add Erytech’s employees to its team and will aid continuing stream of Erytech’s leading product called Graspa, used for acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
