Catalent out of the PE bag: World's biggest CMO goes public
In July, contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) Catalent completed an IPO that raised $872m. The go public plan – which was unveiled in a filing earlier that month – saw previous owner Blackstone retain a significant shareholding in the firm.
Catalent’s prospectus revealed a diverse customer base - 85 of the top 100 branded drugmakers, 20 of the biggest 25 generics firms and 40 of the leading biopharma companies – with Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Merck & Co, Novartis and Roche among the big names.
At the time Catalent CEO John Chiminski told Outsourcing-pharma.com the contract manufacturing sector was “ripe for consolidation.”
And since going public Catalent has been investing in tech as part of its “follow the molecule” strategy. In November it bought particle engineering firm Micron Technologies, in a move that analysts said would allow the CMO to start competing for preclinical development work.
A few days later Catalent bought antibody-drug conjugate technology firm Redwood Bioscience, from which it had licensed rights to SMARTag platform in April 2013.
