Dive Brief:
- Contract developer Catalent Inc. will pick up contract manufacturing company Cook Pharmica LLC for $950 million, the companies said on Tuesday morning.
- Privately-held Cook Pharmica is a biologics developer with capabilities in clinical and commercial cell culture manufacturing, formulation, finished-dose manufacturing and packaging. It brought in $179 million in revenues during the year ended June 2017.
- Through the acquisition, Catalent gains Cook Pharmica’s 875,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Bloomington, Indiana.
Dive Insight:
Consolidation within the contract research, development and manufacturing sector has been widespread this year, with several major deals including Thermo Fisher’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Patheon, Evotec’s grab of Aptuit, and the merger of InVentiv Health and INC Research.
Many bipharma companies tap third parties to conduct research, handle development and even manufacture goods, making this a market worth nearly $40 billion. These sorts of arrangements allow small biotechs to outsource capabilities that could be too expensive to conduct in-house, while enabling big pharms to save costs and reach new markets.
Consolidation within this space has led major players to add new capabilities to their line-up and become a one-stop shop for drugmakers. While new tie-ups may not have a huge impact on big pharma’s already established preferred relationships with providers, small- and mid-sized biotechs could benefit from the added services that could allow them to expand into other indications and therapeutic areas more easily.
Catalent will add 750 employees with the acquisition of Cook Pharmica, while the Bloomington facility will be the latest addition to Catalent's network of more than 30 sites.
Catalent says Cook Pharmica’s sterile formulation and fill/finish expertise will complement its own know-how in areas like cell line engineering, biomanufacturing and blow/fill/seal technologies.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
