Dive Brief:
- Ardena, a Belgium-based pharmaceutical contract manufacturer, will acquire Catalent’s facility in Somerset, New Jersey, according to an Oct. 14 press release.
- Ardena will leverage the oral drug products facility, which has 200 employees, to grow its bioanalytical services in the U.S. and broaden its global footprint, according to the release.
- The acquisition is expected to close in early 2025 and is subject to customary closing conditions. The transaction amount was not disclosed.
Dive Insight:
The acquisition will strengthen Ardena’s capabilities in downstream late-stage and small-scale commercial manufacturing of oral drug products, according to the release.
“By adding advanced technologies such as Hot Melt Extrusion, we are not only enhancing our bioavailability improvement solutions but also aligning with our expertise in developing innovative nanomedicine drug delivery systems,” CEO Jeremie Trochu said in a statement. “This investment accelerates our scale of operations and breadth of offerings to better serve our fast-growing international client base.”
Hot melt extrusion is a pharmaceutical technology used to enhance solubility and make oral drug products faster, according to Catalent.
Ardena is also expanding in Europe, where it already has facilities in Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, according to the release. The CDMO will open a bioanalytical lab at Ardena’s Pivot Park facility in the Netherlands in Q1 2025, along with adding capacity and new GLP capabilities to its bioanalytical center of excellence in Assen, Netherlands.
The New Jersey site also acts as Catalent’s corporate headquarters. The CDMO’s main base will stay at the facility for now before shifting to a new location sometime in the future, according to a company press release. Catalent plans to announce the new headquarters location at a later date.
While Catalent is selling its Somerset facility, the drugmaker is investing in oral solid manufacturing elsewhere. Most recently in 2022, the company invested $475 million to purchase its 333,000-square-foot plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
Catalent is in the midst of a $16.5 billion merger with Novo Holdings, Novo Nordisk’s parent company. The transaction has faced some antitrust scrutiny from senators like Elizabeth Warren, but is still set to close by the end of the year. The acquisition would give Novo access to three Catalent plants in Italy, Belgium and Indiana to expand production of its GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
