Catalent, a leading US supplier of advanced delivery technologies and development solutions for drugs, biologics and consumer health products, has acquired Micron Technologies, a specialist in particle size engineering technologies.

With the addition of Micron's capabilities to its own suite of drug delivery and development solutions, Catalent said it can now partner with more pharmaceutical innovators at the earliest stages of the drug development process, including scale-up, clinical and commercial manufacturing of finished oral and inhaled dose forms including for highly potent compounds.

Micron Technologies currently operates two state-of-the-art facilities at Malvern, Pennsylvania in the US and Dartford UK. Together the sites employ around 100 people.

The acquisition is Catalent's second since its initial public offering in July of this year and follows the acquisition of Redwood Bioscience, with its SMARTag Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) technology platform, in October 2014.

Earlier in November, the US drug delivery specialist said it had begun work on expanding its highly potent and cytotoxic clinical drug packaging capabilities at its campus in Kansas City, MO campus. The expansion will add two large packaging suites, a sampling lab, and space for various storage conditions.