Catalent Combines Core Drug Delivery Services Into New Unit
The Advanced Delivery Technologies (ADT) Unit “will focus on both proven and innovative drug delivery technologies to overcome development challenges,” Catalent Pharma Solutions’ spokesperson Chris Halling told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
“Industry is facing tough challenges with increasingly difficult molecules, requiring more sophisticated development expertise, delivery technologies and supply capabilities,” he added. An example of this, he continued, is the efficacy and bioavailability issues associated with larger molecule and poorly water soluble drugs.
Therefore, the ADT Unit is intended to bring together a number of Catalent’s technologies in order to offer its clients a number of solutions in oral delivery, including its Zydis controlled release tech, and its Optidose and Optimelt hot melt extrusion technology, which the company claims enhances API solubility.
The Unit will run be operated from eight facilities worldwide, including the controlled release technology manufacturing site in Kentucky, USA, where work recently began on a $35m expansion focusing on Zydis – a proprietary formulation which requires no water to disperse in the mouth and is currently in use in Eli Lilly’s bipolar drug Zyprexa.
The other sites include development and manufacturing facilities in UK, Germany, US, Belgium and France.
There will also be an incorporation of Catalent’s biologics offerings, including its proprietary GPEx platform and the SMARTag platform licensed from Redwood Bioscience in April which allows clients to develop antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
The announcement comes as part of a strategy that has seen Catalent streamline and fine tune its services of late, focusing on its “drug development and delivery businesses in core segments,” according to new President of the ADT Unit, Barry Littlejohn, speaking in June.
