FRANKFORT, Ky. (May 19, 2022) – Today, Gov. Andy Beshear congratulated Catalent Inc., which partners with pharma, biotech and consumer health companies to optimize the development, launch and life-cycle supply of products for patients around the world, on its planned $175 million investment to expand its existing operation and add a new R&D facility in Clark County, creating 277 high-wage jobs for Kentuckians.
“It’s always great to see existing companies expand in Kentucky, but it’s even better when that growth includes great jobs for our residents,” Gov. Beshear said. “Catalent has been an important part of the Winchester community and the creation of 277 well-paying jobs will strengthen its presence in Clark County in the years to come. Thank you to Catalent’s leadership for continuing to create excellent job opportunities in our state.”
With this investment, the existing 190,000-square-foot Winchester facility on Enterprise Drive will grow by 90,000 square feet to increase manufacturing capacity within Catalent’s oral dose division. The company also will acquire a nearly 17,000-square-foot facility on Venable Road, which will house its R&D operations. New positions created in Clark County will include, but are not limited to, scientists, manufacturing, quality assurance, maintenance and warehouse positions. Work on the project is expected to begin this year and to be completed by 2027.
Company leadership noted Clark County and the commonwealth’s strong workforce and excellent quality of life as advantages to locating the expansion at the existing Winchester operation. Currently, Catalent employs more than 650 people at the location.
“We look forward to further investing and growing in Winchester,” said Chris Rosenbaum, general manager of Catalent in Winchester. “The state of Kentucky’s talented workforce, tight-knit community and business environment provide major advantages to the future growth of Catalent.”
Catalent is a global leader in helping pharma, biotech and consumer health partners to optimize the development, launch and life-cycle supply of products for patients globally. With expertise in development sciences, delivery technologies and multimodality manufacturing, Catalent partners to produce personalized medicines, consumer health brand extensions and blockbuster drugs. Catalent helps accelerate over 1,000 partner programs and launch over 150 new products every year. Its flexible manufacturing platforms at over 50 global sites supply over 70 billion doses of nearly 7,000 products to more than 1,000 customers annually. Catalent’s expert workforce exceeds 19,000, including more than 2,500 scientists and technicians. Headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey, the company generated $4 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2021.
Currently, more than 200 health care-related technology, service and manufacturing locations operate in the commonwealth, employing over 37,000 Kentucky residents. Since the start of the Beshear administration, businesses within the sector have announced more than 2,000 new jobs throughout the state. The industry includes headquarters operations, pharmaceutical makers, medical equipment design and production, medical device manufacturers and health care product distributors.
Clark County Judge/Executive Henry Branham said Catalent is an instrumental part of the community.
“Our community of Winchester/Clark County is very pleased to work with Catalent on another expansion,” Judge Branham said. “They continually work with our local governments to increase quality of life opportunities for our citizens. They are a wonderful corporate citizen and we are fortunate to have them in our community.”
Winchester Mayor Ed Burtner noted the importance of Catalent’s continued growth.
“The community of Winchester and Clark County are pleased that Catalent has chosen to expand their operations here and thereby add many new, good-paying jobs and investment to our business and economic base,” Mayor Burtner said. “Catalent is an important corporate citizen and we value highly their investment and contributions to our community.”
Catalent’s investment and planned job creation furthers recent economic momentum in the commonwealth, as the state builds back stronger from the effects of the pandemic.
In 2021, the commonwealth shattered every economic development record in the books. Private-sector new-location and expansion announcements included a record $11.2 billion in total planned investment and commitments to create a record 18,000-plus full-time jobs across the coming years. Kentucky’s average incentivized hourly wage for projects statewide in 2021 was $24 before benefits, a 9.4% increase over the previous year.
In recent months, the Beshear administration announced the two largest economic development projects in state history. In September, Gov. Beshear and leaders from Ford Motor Co. and SK Innovation celebrated a transformative $5.8 billion investment that will create 5,000 jobs in Hardin County. And in April, the Governor was joined by leadership at Envision AESC to announce a $2 billion investment that will create 2,000 jobs in Warren County. These announcements solidify Kentucky as the EV battery production capital of the United States.
The economic momentum has carried strongly into 2022, with both S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings upgrading Kentucky’s financial outlook to positive in recognition of the commonwealth’s surging economy.
For April 2022, the State Budget Director reported the highest-ever monthly General Fund receipts of $1.84 billion. That is up 34.9% over last April’s collections, bringing Kentucky’s year-to-date growth rate to 16.4%.
And Site Selection magazine recently placed Kentucky at 6th in its annual Prosperity Cup rankings for 2022, which recognize state-level economic success based on capital investments.
To encourage investment and job growth in the community, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) in April preliminarily approved incentive agreements with the company under the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance-based agreement can provide tax incentives based on the company’s investment and annual job creation and wage targets.
Additionally, KEDFA approved the company for tax incentives through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA). KEIA allows approved companies to recoup Kentucky sales and use tax on construction costs, building fixtures, equipment used in research and development and electronic processing.
By meeting its annual targets over the agreement term, the company can be eligible to keep a portion of the new tax revenue it generates. The company may claim eligible incentives against its income tax liability and/or wage assessments.
In addition, Catalent can receive resources from Kentucky’s workforce service providers. Those include no-cost recruitment and job placement services, reduced-cost customized training and job-training incentives.
For more information on Catalent, visit Catalent.com.
A detailed community profile for Clark County can be viewed here.
Information on Kentucky’s economic development efforts and programs is available at CED.ky.gov. Fans of the Cabinet for Economic Development can also join the discussion at facebook.com/CEDkygov, on Twitter @CEDkygov, Instagram @CEDkygov and LinkedIn.
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