Patheon Inc. > Services > Contract Manufacturing & Packaging

Why should I choose Patheon as my outsourcing partner?
Patheon provides an extensive network of modern facilities throughout the major leading pharmaceutical markets around the globe. We bring more than 30 years of dedicated outsourcing experience and a broad range of capabilities to meet your needs. Our workforce of highly educated and experienced scientific staff provides integrated development services from early phase development all the way through to commercial manufacturing. At Patheon, we are focused on meeting customer needs and we openly participate in strategic partnering relationships.

What type of manufacturing experience does Patheon provide?
Patheon has been exclusively dedicated to contract manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals since 1974.
Our highly experienced teams of manufacturing professionals have a broad range of experience with virtually all kinds of drug formulations including solid, semi-solid and liquid drug formats. At Patheon we can offer manufacturing and packaging services from clinical trial supplies to high volume commercial manufacturing.

Does Patheon offer any specialized services or capabilities in addition to conventional dosage form manufacturing?
At Patheon, we have extensive experience manufacturing a wide variety of specialized drug formats. We offer specialized capabilities for liquid-filled hard capsules (LFHC), controlled/sustained release products, preservative-free nasal sprays, aseptic lyophilized products and can also handle cephalosporins and high-potency products. Our sterile manufacturing capabilities include the use of specialized disposable technologies.

What products does Patheon market or sell?
Patheon does not develop drug formulations to sell. We exclusively focus on providing the best-in-class services to our customers and we do not make or market any drug products of our own account.

What products does Patheon manufacture and for whom?
We manufacture over 700 different products in over 1,500 SKUs for our customers. These products represent the full spectrum of pharmaceuticals with a focus on R_x(prescription) products in virtually all dosage forms (oral, topical and injectable products among others). Many of these are brand-name pharmaceuticals that you would recognize. For reasons of customer confidentiality, we cannot disclose the names of the products that we manufacture however some of our customers are listed in Our Customers section of this website.

Does Patheon offer warehousing, sales and distribution of finished drug products?
Patheon’s services range from preclinical development all the way through to packaging and commercial manufacturing, but do not currently include warehousing, or sales services. We support multi-country clinical trial initiatives including full clinical packaging and distribution and provide assistance with shipments to customer-designated distribution centers.

Can I choose my site?
At Patheon, we strive to meet our customers’ needs. The selection of any particular site can be influenced by site capabilities, site experience and capacity utilization. We work closely with each individual customer to determine the site for their project that best meets their needs.

What is Patheon’s capacity utilization?
Patheon has 10 facilities located throughout Europe and North America. Capacity utilization varies by location, process train, and dosage form impacted by a wide range of variables across our network at any given time. We are in the business of managing capacity and have more than 30 years of experience dedicated to meeting customer manufacturing and development needs. We optimize the use of our existing capacity and are constantly expanding or upgrading our facilities to better serve our customers.

How does Patheon provide security of supply for its customers?
With sites located strategically across Europe and North America, Patheon can offer the security of a secondary supply site within the Patheon network. Patheon can also provide capacity which acts as a secondary manufacturing site to your own in-house facilities able to aid in meeting the variable demand of your valuable products.

What are the next steps if I want to discuss my project with Patheon?
First, a Patheon representative will contact you to discuss the basics of your project. Then a Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement (CDA) is signed. This protects your valuable intellectual property and enables us to engage in more detailed discussions regarding your project quickly working towards a comprehensive and accurate quote.

How would you describe the quotation process?
The quotation process involves an integrated and cross-functional approach between the customer’s project team and the project management teams. Then we require a comprehensive package outlining the technical details of the project so we can accurately assess the specific requirements of the project. Based on this information we thoroughly evaluate the project and provide you with a detailed quote.

What is included in your typical supply agreement?
Our commercial manufacturing agreements include the full range of services required to make a pharmaceutical product. Patheon provides "turn-key" services including materials acquisition, processing, packaging, QC testing and all support services necessary for successful manufacturing. Patheon's commercial supply agreements also include Quality Assurance agreements.
We work to create close partnerships with our customers. Many of our customers have worked with us for several years, and we often enter into long term supply arrangements. Furthermore, we aim to add value to our customers by developing cost savings and efficiency programs.

What is the standard timeline for technology transfer including fabrication of registration batches at pilot scale?
Duration of a technology transfer can vary dramatically based on the individual requirements of the project. The actual fabrication of registration batches at pilot scale can typically be accomplished within a reasonable window of 4-6 weeks from the start of production to final product release. However there can be many steps to the technology transfer required prior to this activity, including analytical method transfers, feasibility or demonstration batch manufacturing, clinical trial material production and so forth. A typical technology transfer, from start-to-finish, would take an average of 4-6 months to complete.

Does Patheon have a disaster recovery or business continuity plan?
Patheon has created an Emergency Response Plan (ERP) with our customers’ needs in mind. We continue to review and modify this process to ensure that we have a comprehensive plan to handle emergency situations.