With AstraZeneca failing to meet supply targets for its COVID-19 vaccine, Europe is struggling to live up to promises to protect its 764 million people from the disease.
Johnson & Johnson’s shot, approved in the EU last week, could help fill the gap—and the pharma has turned to Catalent to speed up production.
Catalent said Wednesday that it will expand its fill-finish plant in Anagni, Italy, to produce J&J’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine. The company will add a second high-speed vial-filling line that is expected to come online in the fourth quarter, doubling its capacity to produce vaccines for the American drugmaker.
The CDMO took over the 300,000 square foot facility—which it bought from Bristol Myers Squibb—in January of 2020 and prepared it for COVID-19 vaccine production. J&J first signed up for production there last July. Catalent has also been filling COVID-19 vaccine orders there for AstraZeneca.
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J&J expects to deliver 200 million doses to the EU this year.
Little wonder that Catalent and Johnson & Johnson have teamed up. They’re based in neighboring towns in New Jersey. In April of last year, Somerset-based CDMO Catalent signed an agreement with the New Brunswick-based pharma giant to be its manufacturing partner in the United States. Catalent’s plant in Bloomington, Indiana hired 300 in the scale-up.
Catalent has seized numerous opportunities to be a major player in production of COVID-19 vaccines, also manufacturing them for Moderna from its plant in Bloomington. Other Catalent facilities producing coronavirus vaccines are in Harmans, Maryland, and Madison, Wisconsin. A site in San Diego is doing early-stage COVID-19 vaccine production.
Catalent CEO John Chiminski called the pandemic a growth “accelerator” earlier this year. The company is involved in more than 80 pandemic-related projects with clients. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2021, Catalent reported a 76% increase in revenues over the same quarter the previous year.
