Editor’s Take: Companies put down roots on both sides of the Atlantic, expanding their capabilities in a number of areas.

This week on “The Friday Brief” … Hovione opened a new facility in East Windsor, NJ, doubling its U.S. spray-drying capacity.

In the UK, Upperton gained approval for a sterile manufacturing site, while Piramal Pharma is planning a solar power plant.

As for continental Europe, Syntegon opened its new oral solid dosage customer center in Germany. Evonik broke ground on a new project in Slovakia that will expand its biotechnology operations. And Fareva is expanding its pharma CDMO network by integrating a production site in Turkey.

The week was not without some M&A activity. The specialist CRO Single Cell Discoveries wrapped up its acquisition of TATAA Biocenter. And Lilly completed its acquisition of AtaiBeckley, adding an investigational program for treatment-resistant depression.

Lilly also entered its TuneLab AI/ML drug discovery platform into a partnership with Twist Bioscience. Another of our top 20 companies, Gilead, launched a collaboration of its own. This one is with the Pan American Health Organization, increasing twice-yearly HIV prevention access in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Elsewhere, Sanofi, UCB, and Opella have joined AstraZeneca as founding members of the Clean Heat Program. This initiative, spearheaded by supply chain intelligence network Secaro and global sustainability consultancy ERM, aims to reduce industrial emissions.

And finally, Thermo Fisher has introduced Invitrogen SuperScript V Reverse Transcriptase. This next-generation engineered enzyme is designed to make converting RNA to complementary DNA faster, easier, and more flexible.

Contract Pharma Conference Next Week!

That’s really just scratching the surface of what we have for you at contractpharma.com this week. Worth noting—next week is our 25th annual Contract Pharma Contracting & Outsourcing Conference. We’ll have all hands on deck from the Contract Pharma team, and we hope to see you there.

In fact, next week’s Friday Brief will be coming to you direct from the show in New Brunswick, NJ. Until then, sign up for our newsletters to get the latest (plus developments from the conference) right in your inbox.