Catalent began a $175 million project to expand its flagship U.S. manufacturing facility for large scale oral dose forms in Winchester, KY. Two new buildings, expected to be completed by January 2024, will add 107,000 sq.-ft. to the site’s manufacturing footprint.
 
The investment will expand the site’s highly potent material handling capabilities and containment vault, provide additional lab space, and add further capacity for existing operations including dual fill encapsulation and pan coating alongside a variety of packaging solutions and analytical services. When complete, it’s expected the expansions will create as many as 277 new jobs, adding to the existing workforce of over 650. 
 
These latest expansions follow a doubling of the site’s footprint, to 190,000 sq.-ft in 2015, and a $40 million investment in 2019 that saw the installation of new equipment for stick pack dosage manufacturing, integrated packaging lines, as well as expanded roller compaction and fluid bed capacity.
 
“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,” commented Aris Gennadios, Ph.D., President of Softgel & Oral Technologies at Catalent. “Our Winchester site has a rich history in the successful commercialization of new products, and this expansion is the latest in a series of strategic investments, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, to ensure that the current and future needs of our customers can be met.”
 
Catalent’s Winchester facility has evolved into one of the industry’s premier sites for complex oral drug formulation and manufacturing. The site has launched more than 150 new products into the market since its inception and produces over three-billion tablets and capsules annually.