DURHAM – Catalent Pharmaceutical Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Catalent Inc., has selected Durham as the site of a new facility that will employ 201 people who will earn more than $91,500 annually.

The company considered locations in Virginia, Kansas, and Missouri, as well, according to a presentation delivered during Tuesday’s Economic Investment Committee meeting.

Catalent’s new facility will focus on growing its bioanalytics business segment, with a focus on cell and gene therapies.  The company plans to invest nearly $40 million by the end of 2026, according to the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Under the terms of a deal agreed to by the state’s Economic Investment Committee, the company could receive more than $1 million in performance-based incentives from the state, along with an additional $530,000 in incentives.

An economic model used by the state projects that the new facility in Durham could boost North Carolina’s gross domestic product by approximately $378 million and increase net state revenue by $8.3 million.

Earlier this year, Catalent bought a Greenville, N.C-based contract development and manufacturing organization, Metrics Contract Services, for $475 million.  In 2020, the company announced it would lay off 84 workers from a Morrisville facility.

Huge drug manufacturing operation in Greenville is sold for $475 million

Investing in the manufacturing of cell therapies

Catalent is hosting a webinar on Wednesday discussing the strategic considerations for scaling the manufacturing of cell therapies and recently announced the opening of a new commercial-scale cell therapy manufacturing facility in Gosselies, Belgium.

The addition in Belguim will add 60,000 square feet “of dedicated cell therapy manufacturing space housing multi-product, segregated suites designed to support autologous and allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing through to late-stage clinical and commercial-scale supply,” according to the company.

Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey.  The company also opened a new facility in Kansas City, Missouri, in October.

“The need for timely analytical support in development, characterization and CGMP testing is critical for innovators across the biologics pipeline, with delays affecting the overall time to get new drugs into the clinic, and ultimately to patients,” said Jeremie Trochu, Division Head for BioAnalytics at Catalent, said in a statement released by the company alongside the announcement of the facility expansion in Kansas City.

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