catalent

$100 million expansion planned for Catalent’s Italian vaccine plant

pharmafile | July 21, 2021 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development  

Contract drug manufacturer, Catalent, has announced its $100 million expansion plans for its site in Agnani, Italy, where it is currently filling millions of vials of COVID-19 vaccines for AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

Catalent expects the expansion will allow it by April 2023 to be able to make the drug substance for complicated biologic drugs, including COVID-19 vaccines or therapies like monoclonal antibodies.

Mario Gargiulo, Catalent’s Region President of Biologics in Europe, said in an interview: “In Europe there is a shortage of capacity of bioreactors for biologic (drugs). We thought that this was the right place to create this capability, a capability that can be used for a public health emergency like COVID-19.”

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The company plans to install two 2,000-litre single-use bioreactors at the Agnani plant, as well as the infrastructure required for another six 2,000-litre single-use bioreactors.

Catalent acquired the Agnani plant from Bristol Myers Squibb in January 2020 and quickly signed deals to fill and finish the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines there. Gargiulo says that by the end of October 2022, the site will have put 1 billion doses of vaccine into vials.

He went on to say that Catalent does not have any deals yet to make COVID-19 vaccine drugs at the plant, and does not know whether there will be a need for the capacity by early 2023.

However, he did state that Catalent has contracts to fill and finish vaccines that could be renewed through the end of 2023, so there was certainly a possibility the capacity will be required.

Kat Jenkins

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