As Catalent further expands its softgel drug delivery capabilities with its acquisition of Accucaps, we speak with June Lin, global marketing director consumer health softgel, about the benefits these expanded capabilities will offer.
June Lin, global marketing director consumer health softgel, Catalent
June Lin
Q. What was the driving force behind Catalent’s recent acquisition of Accucaps?
A. Catalent’s goal is to help its customers develop and supply products to meet the needs of their end consumers and patients. We partner with our customers to develop best-in-class formulations and products, using innovative drug delivery technologies to enable better treatments in consumer-friendly dosage forms.
As an organisation, we are constantly looking at ways to expand and deepen our range of technologies, and add capabilities to address our customers’ needs. We undertake our own independent scientific development programmes and, also, look for acquisition opportunities that fit with this strategy.
As part of this approach to technology expansion, we acquired Micron Technologies for particle-size engineering, Pharmatek Laboratories for early drug development and spray drying and, recently, Accucaps Industries Limited to further strengthen our global softgel capabilities and capacity.
The Accucaps acquisition adds two new sites in Ontario, Canada specialising in consumer health softgel products, including over-the-counter (OTC) monograph products, offering ready-to-market dossiers that are available for customers to help speed up the commercialisation process. In addition, the sites have an integrated suite of packaging services, including blistering and bottling functions, allowing us to deliver turnkey solutions to customers.
We now have additional softgel capacity in North America to expand our consumer health presence, adding to that of our flagship site in St Petersburg, Florida, which focuses largely on prescription pharmaceutical products. The two Canadian sites expand our global softgel presence, creating a network of 12 softgel facilities across five continents to meet the needs of both large, global multinational and regional customers.
Q. How will this acquisition expand Catalent’s softgel capabilities?
A. Added capacity and capabilities were key elements in this acquisition. In particular, Accucaps possesses depth of knowledge in the development and commercialisation of OTC products, including a portfolio of developed dossiers across a wide range of OTC segments that enable accelerated product launches.
Catalent’s customers will benefit from our increased ability to offer turnkey softgel solutions. Significant investments, which have already been undertaken by Accucaps, fit well with Catalent’s own strategic goals, to offer customers access to more products, capacity and integrated solutions for differentiated products and more and better treatments.
Q. This acquisition has come shortly after that of Pharmatek. Could you provide some background on this deal?
A. The Pharmatek acquisition adds extensive early-phase drug development capabilities from discovery to clinic, brings spray drying into our portfolio of drug formulation and delivery technologies, and expands our capabilities for handling highly potent compounds. The addition of spray drying provides our customers with a comprehensive suite of bioavailability enhancement solutions, while complementing and expanding our award-winning OptiForm Solution Suite platform, a science-driven parallel screening approach to identify the optimal formulation pathway for poorly soluble compounds.
The cGMP San Diego site also expands our West Coast presence and provides additional access to Asia-Pacific markets.
Catalent is continually looking to expand its portfolio of technologies and capabilities, and, as has been seen previously, should the right opportunity present itself, we would look at further acquisitions to differentiate our offerings and add value to our customer base.
Q. What innovations can we anticipate moving forward?
A. Catalent continues to innovate and introduce new softgel technologies for better drug delivery and improved consumer/patient compliance. As the originator of RP Scherer softgel technology over 80 years ago, Catalent has a long history and heritage of innovation both for pharmaceutical and consumer health applications.
It is important that innovators and developers continue to make strides in product performance, and keep consumers in mind when they do so. The innovative development of the technology, such as rapid onset, increased palatability and the ability to tailor appearance and flavour characteristics have all been made in recent years to adapt to changing market needs and consumer demands.
With our vast experience in prescription and OTC medicines, we can offer new technologies to deliver relevant benefits to meet the evolving needs of today’s patients and consumers.