Monday, November 14, 2022 Daily Archives

COVID cull: Valneva cutting workforce and manufacturing ops

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The discontinuation of its COVID program has led Valneva to resize its operations and question the use of its Livingston, UK facility. French vaccine firm Valneva SE developed VLA2001, an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate, approved in the European Union (EU) in January 2022. Despite initial orders to supply up to 100 million doses in the UK, and a further 60 million doses in Europe last year, the changing COVID-19 pandemic landscape meant Valneva’s vaccine never achieved the rollout seen with…

November 14, 2022

Aragen sets it sights on biologics manufacturing with India facility

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CDMO Aragen Life Sciences plans to build a biologics manufacturing plant in Bangalore, India, the firm told BioProcess Insider at CPhI Frankfurt. Chief commercial officer Ramesh Subramanian of the contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Aragen says the facility, of which financial details have not been disclosed, will manufacture monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) “for now.” According to the firm, the Bangalore facility will initially include 2 x 500 L sub-unit bioreactors but has the capacity to add a further 2 x 2,000…

November 14, 2022

BioNTech buys Novartis plant to bring mRNA to Singapore

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BioNTech is set to acquire a Novartis small molecule plant molecule site in Singapore and will transform it into the country’s first mRNA manufacturing facility.   In May 2021, BioNTech said it was aiming to bring messenger RNA (mRNA) manufacturing to Asia by building a facility in Singapore. 18 months on and the firm has now entered into an agreement to acquire a GMP-certified manufacturing facility on the island-state from pharma giant Novartis. “Novartis announced today that it has entered…

November 14, 2022

$50m PE injection for Orgenesis’ cell therapy POC business

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Cell and gene therapy (CGT) biotech Orgenesis has set up a subsidiary focused on streamlining its cell therapy point-of-care (POC) service offerings. Metalmark Capital Partners will invest up to $50 million in Orgenesis’s POC subsidiary, Morgenesis, through an upfront investment of $30 million and two future investments of $10 million each, subject to certain milestones. Morgenesis brings together the full range of Orgenesis’ advanced therapy POC options, including its Orgenesis Mobile Processing Units and Labs (OMPULs) platform, which are based…

November 14, 2022