Laid off from Catalent.

What Catalent layoffs have meant for employees

Catalent's Maryland cuts came in installments. Three batches of notices in six months each named jobs at Harmans and in Baltimore, and each set separations about two months after it was filed, as our WARN tracker shows. Harmans, site of the two gene therapy facilities named in August, accounted for 470 of the 526 jobs. The company tied the later batches to the same August shift in demand in statements to BioBuzz and Technical.ly, so the reason given in August stood behind all three. If you're on one of those notices, it's worth getting your own separation date in writing and checking anything that depends on your last day against it.

Those sites came with Catalent's $1.2 billion purchase of Paragon Bioservices in 2019, by Technical.ly's account, and Harmans grew in 2021, The Banner reported. Technical.ly also put Catalent's spending on upgrading the facility outside BWI Airport at $360 million or more. Catalent had 17 locations in the U.S. at the time, by the Banner's count, which matters if you're hoping to move to another one. The Maryland cuts came as other contract manufacturers scaled back cell and gene therapy plants or left the field, Pharma Manufacturing reported in January 2026, in the same article that said Catalent's own cell therapy site in Gosselies, Belgium was slated to close, a plan potentially affecting about 150 employees. For anyone whose trade is gene therapy manufacturing, that wider pullback is worth weighing when comparing a move within Catalent with a search outside it.

Catalent's San Francisco work was slated to transfer elsewhere in its network under the plan in its fiscal 2024 10-K. For Gosselies it went less far, saying only that it would consider moving some ongoing business to other sites. In 2022, at Bloomington, it promised to "seek to deploy as many as possible to other open roles in the network," WRTV reported. Its employee-related restructuring costs have also included "duplicate payroll costs during transition periods," the fiscal 2023 10-K notes. If your site is closing, consider asking where its work is headed and whether there's a place for you there, and if you're asked to stay on through a handover, its end date and pay are worth having in writing. Where severance is also on offer, it's worth getting a written answer on whether taking or declining a transfer changes it.

The takeover, which closed in December 2024 according to the Indiana Daily Student, also set terms for people still on the payroll. For a year after the merger took effect, the merger agreement required the new owner, a Novo Holdings subsidiary named in Catalent's February 2024 8-K, to give any continuing employee whose job ended severance no less favorable, in the aggregate, than the agreement's disclosure schedule set out. The promise was written to follow employees who moved to Novo Nordisk with the Bloomington plant and the two European sites. Staff covered by a union contract were left to that contract, and the agreement says no employee can enforce the promise. If you were on the payroll when the deal closed, lost your job within that year and were offered severance, it's reasonable to ask HR which schedule the offer was based on.

When you explain a Catalent layoff to a hiring manager, the company's own stated reasons are on record to point to, and explaining a layoff has more on handling that question. For a Maryland claim, the state's process is summarized at Maryland unemployment benefits. And if you're handed separation papers, the terms in them are the ones to read closely, since each of Catalent's statements about severance and transition support was made about a particular round.

A sourced history of Catalent layoffs

• February 2026, third round of Maryland notices

  Notices filed February 19 listed 93 jobs at Harmans and 3 in Baltimore. A spokesperson called them "additional, expected workforce reductions" in a statement to Technical.ly.

• November 2025, second round of Maryland notices

  Notices filed November 6 listed 61 jobs at Harmans, 14 in Baltimore and 2 in Hanover, and that day Catalent confirmed "additional workforce reductions in Baltimore" to BioBuzz.

• August 2025, Maryland gene therapy layoffs

  Notices filed August 20 listed 316 jobs at Catalent's two Harmans gene therapy facilities and 32 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore BioPark, The Banner reported, plus 5 in Hanover by our tracker's count. Catalent cited "an unexpected shift in demand from a large customer."

• October 2023, San Francisco site closure

  Catalent committed to closing its San Francisco operations and moving them to other sites, according to its fiscal 2024 10-K. Closure notices for 40 jobs at 228 Shaw Road and 50 at 250 Hillside Blvd in South San Francisco set separations for May 24, 2024, per California's WARN report.

• Second quarter 2023, biologics and corporate cuts

  In the quarter ended June 30, 2023, according to its fiscal 2023 10-K, Catalent adopted a further plan to cut costs and headcount, mostly in its Biologics segment and corporate functions, bringing fiscal 2023's cuts to about 1,100 positions.

• Late 2022, layoffs in Indiana, Maryland and Texas

  Catalent planned about 400 layoffs at its Bloomington plant, about 60 of them temporary, and promised severance and job transition support, WRTV reported. A Gaithersburg and Rockville plant closure cost 135 Maryland jobs, and more than 75 Texas workers were let go, according to The Banner.

What to do if you're laid off from Catalent

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Catalent's biggest hubs: Maryland. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Catalent's hub states run: Maryland, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.