Catalent bringing clinical supply services to Japanese facility
The 200,000 sq. ft. cGMP facility in Kakegawa, Japan has been operating for over 40 years, providing a range of manufacturing services.
Now Catalent intends to offer local and regional customers clinical supply services direct from the site.
“We previously performed any necessary packaging work at a Catalent facility outside of the region and then imported the finished goods into an in-country depot for distribution to our customers' clinical sites within Japan,” Amy Lombardi, Group Product Manager, Catalent Clinical Supply Services, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
“Having a facility in Japan that offers secondary packaging, along with clinical storage and distribution services, offers our customers greater flexibility and improves supply chain efficiency.”
The site will form part of the New Jersey, US-headquartered firm’s Asian-Pacific clinical supply network, which includes a full service clinical packaging facility in Shanghai, cold-chain and secondary packaging and clinical storage facility in Singapore.
“This investment boosts a critical part of our business capabilities in Asia-Pacific by adding the ability to support global and local pharma companies' clinical trial needs from Japan,” Lombardi continued.
“It will provide local capabilities, with dedicated local resources and expertise, to better serve multinational customers' Japanese studies and Japanese pharma's global studies, in addition to domestic only studies.”
Lombardi did not divulge financial details or whether the expansion would create any new jobs.
Catalent in Japan
The announcement is the latest in a line of recent investments in Japan by the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO).
In 2014, Catalent announced it was opening an oral formulation development lab and expanding its OptiGel micro softgel manufacturing capacity at the Kakegawa site.
The firm has also been forging a number of biologics R&D partnerships in the region, including an agreement with the Center for iPS (induced pluripotent stem) Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University and teamed up with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company to make cell lines for the region.
