Cook in the books: Biologics acquisition boosts Catalent Q2
For the second quarter fiscal year 2018, Catalent recorded revenues of $606m (€495m), including $511m from its Drug Delivery Solutions business. The segment, which includes oral delivery services and biomanufacturing, grew 26% on the same period last year.
Much of the growth CFO Matthew Welsh attributed to recent acquisitions, including the $950m Cook Pharmica deal completed during the quarter, which added additional cell culture manufacturing from a facility in Bloomington, Indiana as well as fill and finish capabilities.
“As we're seeing in the numbers, the acquisition of the Bloomington site significantly accelerates the already strong growth of our existing biologics business by extending biomanufacturing capacity for clinical and commercial manufacturing across the network,” Welsh – who is imminently leaving Catalent to join Allergan – said on a call.
“As a reminder, biologics comprised approximately 14% of Catalent's consolidated revenue since fiscal year 2017 and the acquisition of Cook Pharmica is expected to increase our biologics percentage to 21% of the combined entities' pro forma revenue.”
Future expansions
Catalent now has two biomanufacturing sites, the 875,000 sq ft Bloomington facility and the Madison, Wisconsin facility acquired from GE Healthcare in 2011.
“Our thinking has evolved quite a bit over the last three or four months since we've gotten our hands on the Bloomington facility. We're now positioning it towards having two Centers of Excellence, towards drug substance manufacturing,” CEO John Chiminski told stakeholders on the call.
The additional site may also change plans in the works to expand Madison through a potential fourth and fifth train, he explained.
“Our thinking now is that we may be able to accelerate that fourth and fifth train through readily available space that's within the [Bloomington] facility.
“Those decisions aren't made, but it just tells you the quality of this asset that we have, and the flexibility, and the fact that we might actually be able to accelerate some of our timelines depending on the route that we go whether it's greenfield [at Madison] or just building out within Bloomington.”
