Catalent to continue "disproportionate" focus on biologics through M&A and tech deals
For the fiscal year 2015, the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) reported stagnant growth in net sales of $1.8bn (€1.6bn), but revenue from Catalent’s Medication Delivery Solutions grew 6% year-on-year to $262m, partially due to increased demand for its biologics offerings.
“We saw the positive results of our investments in the biologics business,” CFO Matt Walsh said in a call discussing results Wednesday. “The addition of the ADC [antibody-drug conjugate] protein engineering technology from Redwood and our partnership with Excelimmune on their ACT [antibody combination] technologies broaden the scope of biologic services that we can provide to customers.”
Both deals were closed during the fiscal year, and despite biologics not being the firm’s core business (Oral Technologies clocked in 62% of the firm’s revenues for the FY) Catalent has pledged it will carry on investing favourably in the sector.
“We continue to place some disproportionate emphasis from a company strategic standpoint on biologics because we really know that there is one value that Catalent can create as a lot more biologics are coming to the market,” CEO John Chiminski told stakeholders.
Expansions and M&A
A recently completed expansion which included the implementation of 1,000L single-use bioreactors at the firm’s biomanufacturing plant in Madison, Wisconsin contributed to a “substantial double-digit increase in the commercial volumes that were put through that facility,” he said, but for future growth Catalent is looking at its long-term M&A strategy.
“All of the deals that we’ve done have pretty much been self-sourced within the company but as we pursue the M&A landscape of biologics we are going outside to understand what’s available,” he said.
“We’ve put in place two very strong biologic side advisory board - those are now only six to eight months up and running. They are going to add a tremendous amount of value so, I would say, we are very early on, but confident that the long-term strategy that we are currently executing on is going to be a long-term fuel for the growth.”
