Catalent Expands Cold-Chain Capacity at Shanghai Facility

Catalent Pharma Solutions announced plans to quadruple the cold-chain capacity at its existing clinical supply storage and distribution facility in Shanghai, China. The expansion comes in response to increasing demand from domestic and multinational pharmaceutical sponsors and contract research organizations (CROs).

Catalent says expansion work at the site has started and is due to be fully validated and operational by the end of 2015. The facility, which opened in 2013, was the first in China to provide end-to-end clinical supply solutions from clinical supply management, comparator/reference product sourcing, and primary packaging to clinical storage and distribution.

The cGMP site is also validated to support biologics requiring refrigerated and frozen supply-chain management and currently offers controlled room temperature, refrigerated, frozen, and ultra-low frozen storage environments.

The new expansion includes the quadrupling of existing cold-chain storage capacity, as well as new dedicated receiving, dispatch and packaging areas.

The facility is located in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, close to the Pudong and Hongqiao international airports, and other key transport links across China and the broader Asia Pacific region. As a result, the site benefits from expedited customs and clearance processes, as well as the potential elimination of duties, taxes, and transportation delays.

Catalent has also added further packaging and low-temperature storage capacity to its Singapore facility, citing the need to support secondary packaging and innovative and flexible clinical supply services.

Source: Catalent