A healthy brand feeds pharmaceutical and biotechnology development

Developing a brand for Catalent Pharma Solutions in short time, without sacrificing a strategy for long-term growth

When The Blackstone Group, a premier global investment and advisory firm, announced the acquisition of Cardinal Health’s Pharmaceutical Technology & Services (PTS) division in January 2007, the newly acquired company had only four months to stop using the Cardinal brand. Starting out with nearly $2 billion in revenue and more than 10,000 employees around the world, the company needed a global brand to represent a “new” company with its substantial history of innovation and achievement.

To get to the core idea that could unify and motivate everyone in the organization, brand strategists at Tenet Partners talked to both internal and external stakeholders around the world – from the president to the technicians in the lab. But with the compressed timeline to develop a new brand, we needed to re-think our typical process. Strategy, naming and identity development happened in a dynamic and co-creative environment, with our staff working closely with the new company’s launch team to nail the foundation for the new company. The brand platform Tenet created expressed the company’s commitment to unlocking the potential of medicines. The new name and logo were inspired by Catalent’s pride in their role as catalyst for their customers’ success and advances in pharmaceutical and biotechnology development.

Within seven years after launch, Catalent’s customer-focused strategy helped them become the world’s number one drug development, delivery and supply partner for pharmaceutical, biologics and consumer health products. In July of 2014, just seven years later, Catalent successfully launched an $871 million IPO. That’s good medicine.