Catalent confirms $350m Bloomington expansion

Catalent has announced a multi-year $350 million investment at its plant in Bloomington, Indiana after months of speculation.

In February, various publications, including B Square Bulletin, reported that contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Catalent is looking to spend $350 million at its Bloomington, Indiana facility with the City of Bloomington supposedly offering the firm millions of dollars in tax breaks.

The city council is said to have unanimously voted in favour of the tax breaks two months ago, but a further vote was expected to take place March 2, 2022. IDS News reported the tax breaks would register above $43 million, if approved.

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Now, the CDMO has confirmed the expansion and said the investment will support various modalities with bioreactors, additional lyophilization capacity, syringe filling lines, quality-controlled laboratories, and complex automated packaging.

“The expansion will enable our flagship facility to become one of the largest and most comprehensive global centers of integrated biomanufacturing, fill/finish, and secondary packaging. We will also be able to provide greater flexibility for our customers across dose form presentations and batch sizes, so that we can serve early- and late-phase development programs, and on to high-volume commercial supply,” a Catalent spokesperson told us.

According to Catalent, it will install 2,000 L single-use bioreactors and expand downstream processing capabilities for drug substance. The firm claims this provides customers with versatility as it can produce batches up to 4,000 L using SUT, or 5,000 L using existing stainless-steal bioreactors.

Furthermore, the company says quality control laboratories and complex packaging spaces with high-speed, auto-injector device assembly abilities, and automated cartooning will be installed.

It is expected that these new capabilities will be fully operational later this year. However, the complete expansion is anticipated to be completed in 2024.

The expansion is expected to create 1,000 job opportunities in Bloomington over the coming years.

“The growth in employee numbers [the 1,000 new roles mentioned] will span the next few years and so far, with a lot of help from our HR and talent acquisition teams, we have been successful in finding the right numbers of suitable people and have already filled a similar number of roles between 2021 and 2022 year-to-date,” the spokesperson said.