CDMO Catalent has kept busy with mergers and acquisitions, but Monday, it announced a collaboration with DisperSol to accelerate the manufacturing of the company’s oncology drugs.
Catalent will install a commercial-scale KinetiSol line at the oral solids development and manufacturing facility in Somerset, NJ. The platform works to turn molecules with clinical promise into viable medicines, and the KinetiSol technology will be used for all of DisperSol’s pipeline products. That includes a Phase III trial for iron overload disorder and a Phase II trial against prostate cancer.
DisperSol will tech transfer its equipment, software and IP to New Jersey, and Catalent will provide the staff needed, including quality control and assurance.
“This strategic collaboration with Catalent is integral to our company as we now move into late clinical-stage development and commercial-scale manufacturing of our products,” DisperSol CEO Edward Rudnic said in a press release. “The commercial amorphous solid dispersion manufacturing expertise of Catalent’s team and their globally accredited quality systems make them a perfect partner for DisperSol.”
DisperSol’s active programs also include a Phase II trial for DST-8294, which is being studied to treat clotting disorders. The company also has DST-0058 for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and DST-5407 for non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer in its pipeline.
In a little more than a month, Catalent has acquired a German cell and gene therapy specialist RheinCell Therapeutics, and inked contracts with Denver cannabidiols company JOS Pharmaceuticals, and another Austin, TX-area preclinical company Curtana Pharmaceuticals. With Curtana, the company will make CT-179, a drug therapy for glioblastoma, medulloblastoma and other brain cancers.
The company also announced an upgrade to its sleek new facility in Anagni, Italy, the second in the last six months. Two new 2,000 liter single-use bioreactors with new manufacturing suites will support early-phase clinical development and late-stage commercial transfers The project is expected to add 100 new employees, and it should be operational in April 2023.
Cytiva drops massive manufacturing investment in home state
A Massachusetts-based life sciences company will invest $1.5 billion over the next two years to meet a growing demand for biotech manufacturing.
Cytiva, which has headquarters in Marlborough, has already broken ground on a project that includes $600 million for chromatography resins, $400 million for cell culture media, $300 million toward single-use technologies, the Worcester Business Journal reports.
In 2020, the company invested $500 million in nearby Shrewsbury, MA and Westborough, MA.
Bristol Myers sale of Swiss site to WuXi is complete
Bristol Myers Squibb is working on re-evaluating its manufacturing portfolio, and it’s just completed one of its big-name deals of the year.
In February, WuXi AppTech’s subsidiary company WuXi STA announced that it planned to acquire the Bristol Myers site in Couvet, Switzerland. That deal was finalized on Tuesday, the drugmaker announced in a press release.
It’s not a full departure of Bristol Myers from Switzerland, however. The drugmaker says the country remains an “important strategic location for the company” and says it will keep a presence there, despite no longer having any physical space in the country.
The site, based in Neuchâtel, specializes in capsule and tablet dosage.
