Catalent, Inc. (CTLT Quick QuoteCTLT - Free Report) announced that it has expanded its existing strategic collaboration with Moderna, Inc. (MRNA Quick QuoteMRNA - Free Report) to dedicate a new high-speed vial filling line for the manufacture of the latter’s mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) at Catalent’s biologics facility in Bloomington, IN.

Per the latest development, Catalent will now provide a new high-speed filling line at the above-mentioned site, through June 2023, that can be used to manufacture Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and other investigational programs in the latter’s R&D pipeline. Additionally, Catalent will provide inspection, labeling and final packaging for these programs.

Notably, in September 2020, Catalent invested $50 million into this third high-speed vial filling line at Bloomington. Further, dedicating this new line to Moderna will help to free up capacity on existing lines for other important programs at the given site.

Shares of Catalent have increased 2.8% so far this year against the industry’s decline of 7.7%.

In June last year, Catalent inked a manufacturing agreement with Moderna for providing large-scale, commercial fill-finish manufacturing of the latter’s COVID-19 vaccine at its biologics facility in Bloomington. Catalent is now dedicating a high-speed vial filling line to do fill-finish services as part of the expansion.

Notably, Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273, is approved for emergency/conditional use in several countries.

Apart from Moderna, Pfizer (PFE Quick QuotePFE - Free Report) / BioNTech, AstraZeneca/Oxford University and J&J (JNJ Quick QuoteJNJ - Free Report) have launched their COVID-19 vaccines in some countries for adults.

Zacks Rank

Catalent currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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