Catalent, Inc. has reached an agreement to acquire Metrics Contract Services, a full-service specialty contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with a facility in Greenville, NC, for $475 million from Mayne Pharma Group Limited. The acquisition will strengthen Catalent’s capabilities in integrated oral solid formulation development, manufacturing and packaging to help customers simplify and accelerate their programs, while also expanding Catalent’s capacity to handle highly potent compounds.

The 333,000 square-foot Greenville facility features capabilities to accelerate and de-risk customer programs from early development through commercial launch through a streamlined one-site solution.

Over the past five years, the facility has seen more than $100 million in capital improvements and now includes 16 manufacturing suites, with 11 designed to handle highly potent compounds, as well as two packaging lines that can support a large variety of development and commercial supply programs. The facility’s estimated annual production capacity exceeds one billion oral solid dose units.

“This acquisition will further expand Catalent’s ability to meet our customers’ expectations in fast-growing areas of the business and patient need,” said Aris Gennadios, group president of Catalent’s pharma and consumer health segment. “The experienced team and consistently improved, state-of-the-art facility in Greenville will provide Catalent’s customers with immediate, fit-for-scale capacity for in-demand highly potent drugs and other oral solid small-to-mid-size batch needs. This capacity is particularly important for customers with R&D pipelines featuring accelerated, orphan, and rare disease programs for oncology and other important therapeutic areas.”

Scott Richards, CEO of Mayne Pharma, said, “Over the past several years, Metrics has undergone a period of transformational change to expand its footprint and service offering, becoming a global end-to-end novel oral solid CDMO. Catalent, a global leader in advanced drug development and manufacturing, is well-positioned to continue to invest in and accelerate the growth of Metrics and we believe this transaction will be extremely positive for our Greenville team and customers.”

The new facility will integrate into Catalent’s oral development and manufacturing network, which includes flagship sites for large-scale and controlled release oral solids manufacturing in Winchester, KY; softgel development and manufacturing in St. Petersburg, FL; and additional facilities with bioavailability enhancement technologies and complex oral solids manufacturing platforms.

The acquisition is expected to close before the end of this calendar year, subject to customary closing conditions, and the entire team of over 400 employees will join Catalent. Mayne Pharma and Catalent have also agreed on the terms of a long-term supply agreement whereby the Greenville facility will continue to manufacture multiple Mayne Pharma products. Catalent will pay the purchase price for this all-cash acquisition using a combination of cash on hand, existing credit facilities, and, depending on market conditions, potentially new debt financing. The closing of the acquisition is not contingent on any financing activity.