Catalent has announced a collaboration with the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, wherby Catalents Biologics business unit will accelerate availability of manufacturing capacity and prepare for large-scale commercial manufacturing of Johnson & Johnsons lead vaccine candidate for COVID-19 at its facility in Bloomington, Indiana.

The collaboration commits joint investment to accelerate rapid scale-up of segregated manufacturing capacity over the coming months to support dedicated production of Johnson & Johnsons investigational vaccine candidate. Catalent plans to hire approximately 300 additional employees at the site for this programme starting in July 2020 to meet operational readiness and 24x7 manufacturing schedules by January 2021.

"Catalent is proud to collaborate with Johnson & Johnson in its efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and save lives," said John Chiminski, Chair and CEO of Catalent. "Both organisations have committed to ambitious goals and are executing innovative strategies to meet the forecasted demand on an unprecedented timeline. We value the trust that Johnson & Johnson has placed in us regarding this important, time-sensitive programme and will apply our extensive experience in quickly scaling up manufacturing operations for late-stage and commercial products."

In addition to the Bloomington facility, the Catalent Biologics network has facilities in Brussels, Belgium and Anagni, Italy that perform sterile drug product manufacturing and packaging, and additional facilities in the US and Europe for manufacturing proteins, viral vectors for gene therapies, and cell therapies, as well as pre-filled syringe manufacture and bioanalytics.