Singapore: Catalent Pharma Solutions and UMN Pharma announced the signing of an agreement to provide UMN Pharma a broad range of biosimilar cell lines using Catalent's proprietary GPEx technology. The development and manufacturing programs will benefit from the GPEx technology producing very stable and high yielding cell lines.

Under the agreement, UMN Pharma and its subsidiary UNIGEN, which is a contract manufacturer, will produce a number of biosimilars using Catalent's GPEx cell lines. UMN Pharma, separately, will build an alliance of pharmaceutical companies for product development including clinical trials,
marketing and sales. UMN Pharma plans to begin multiple biosimilar projects with their alliance companies for the Asian market on an ongoing basis.

"There are great synergies between UMN Pharma and Catalent in terms of technologies, business structure, speed and culture," commented Mr Masahiro Michishita, executive chairman of UMN Pharma. "Harnessing Catalent's broad biologics development and cell construction expertise gives UMN Pharma a unique platform to grow our biosimilars business globally."

Mr Barry Littlejohns, Catalent's president, medication delivery solutions, added, "This agreement will allow Catalent to continue to grow its biologics development and manufacturing interests of multiple biosimilars and NBEs, particularly in the Asian market. UMN Pharma's ambitious expansion plans reflect Catalent's strategy for growth in what we consider to be a key market."

Mr Hans-Joachim Rohe, president of Catalent Japan added that, "We are very excited to offer a continuously expanding range of Catalent services to our customers in Japan. With the growing demand for Catalent's GPEx technology we enforce our position as leading supplier of drug delivery solutions and expert services."