Silver anniversary: Catalent celebrates 25 years in Winchester

Published 12:05 pm Friday, April 13, 2018

quarter century ago, International Processing Corporation opened its doors in the Winchester Industrial Park as a food processing company with 33 employees.

Thursday, the facility, now part of Catalent Pharma Solutions, celebrated its 25th anniversary as a company with 600 employees making billions of doses of medication annually.

“Winchester is absolutely a critical site in the Catalent network,” said chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Chiminski. “This is a site that delivered 3 billion doses a year.”

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Catalent contracts with pharmaceutical companies to develop and produce medication.

During the life of the Winchester location, workers have developed more than 100 products, Chiminski said.

“It is a complicated company, but we have a massive impact on people around the world,” Chiminski said.

“We understand the people taking those doses could be our children or our parents,” Winchester General Manager Denis Johnson said.

In the last five years, Catalent announced two major expansions in Winchester, which in turn added hundreds of jobs.

“Twenty-five years is a remarkable achievement but it’s how this business has blossomed that I find remarkable,” Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development Secretary Terry Gill said.

In the last seven years, Catalent added 400 jobs and invested $120 million in Winchester, Gill said.

“This has always been a place where people wanted to work,” said Michael Valazza, the original general manager for the Winchester site and a current vice president for business development at Catalent. “We had 800 applications for those first 33 jobs.”

Among the crowd at Thursday’s festivities were four of those original employees who are still working at the plant, as well as many with 15 or more years at Winchester.

“It’s the passion of the people that’s the secret for the success here,” Valazza said. “I look forward to the day you celebrate your 1,000th employee.”

About Fred Petke

Fred Petke is a reporter for The Winchester Sun, the Jessamine Journal and the State Journal. His beats include cops, courts, fire, public records, city and county government and other news. To contact Fred, email fred.petke@bluegrassnewsmedia.com or call 859-759-0051.

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