Patheon IPO Could Bring $700M to NC

Patheon's Greenville manufacturing complex, the largest contract manufacturing facility in North America. -- Patheon photo

Patheon, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Durham, is embarking on an initial public offering of stock that it hopes will raise up to $700 million.

Patheon said its IPO will include 30,487,805 of its ordinary shares for an expected price between $19.00 and $22.00 per share.

The company is selling 25,609,756 ordinary shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PTHN. Separately, a stockholder is selling 4,878,049 ordinary shares. Patheon will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ordinary shares by the selling stockholder, the company says.

Patheon is a significant contributor to North Carolina’s reputation as a world leader in contract manufacturing. It’s one of the top three contract manufacturers in the industry, operating 12 commercial-scale production facilities around the world that employ some 8,000 people. That includes nearly 1,600 employees working at its three North Carolina campuses:

• 1,025 at its huge Greenville manufacturing site, a 1.5-million-square-foot complex of 29 buildings on 640 acres, the largest contract manufacturing facility in North America;
• 415 at its Banner Life Sciences factory in High Point, the world's second-largest pharmaceutical business focused on delivering proprietary softgel formulations that make oral medications easier to swallow;
• 150 at its headquarters facility in Durham.

The company has announced plans to add 488 jobs to its sterile-fill facility in Greenville by 2019 as part of a planned $159 million expansion there.