Author Archives: Millie Nelson

Thermo Fisher and ArsenalBio ink CAR-T deal

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Thermo Fisher Scientific and Arsenal Biosciences said its updated partnership will further advance  the development of production processes for cancer treatments. Contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Thermo Fisher first teamed up with clinical-stage cell therapy firm manufacturing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies ArsenalBio in 2020. Under the terms of the deal, Thermo Fisher aimed to support ArsenalBio to tackle specific challenges connected with cell therapy production by working as a team to aid advancement of a clinical-scale gene editing…

April 10, 2023

Seagen: ADC pipeline drove Washington $350m+ plant buildout

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‘The reason we are building a new facility in Everett, Washington is threefold, but primarily it is about our pipeline,’ says firm. Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) developer Seagen (previously Seattle Genetics), which is set to be acquired by Pfizer for $43 billion, announced plans in April 2022 to spend between $350 and $400 million to construct a greenfield biomanufacturing site in Everett, Washington. The decision to build the 270,000 square-foot facility “is threefold, but primarily it is about our pipeline and…

April 7, 2023

Teknova and Sartorius partner to address gene therapy challenges

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The collaboration aims to help gene therapy companies streamline their downstream purification processes, says Alpha Teknova and Sartorius BIA Separations. Teknova, a manufacturer of reagents for research, development, and commercialization of vaccines, therapies, and molecular diagnostics has partnered with BIA Separations – part of Sartorius  after being acquired  for $423 million in October 2020. Sartorius BIA Separations’ adeno-associated virus (AAV) platform, which has been designed to improve the separation of viral particles and Teknova’s buffer solutions developed to expand capsid…

April 6, 2023

BioNTech steps into ADC space with $170m payout to DualityBio

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BioNTech will receive the licenses from Duality Biologics for two investigational antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) assets, which aim to treat various cancers. BioNTech became a household name through its second collaboration with Pfizer after the success of BNT162b2 (Comirnaty), which was the first messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine to receive emergency use approval in December 2020. However, the Germany-based firm his looked beyond mRNA as its dominant modality and has invested in cell therapies, and various antibodies, but BioNTech has not tapped…

April 4, 2023

Pharmaron to expand UK gene therapy biz at ex-AbbVie plant

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CDMO Pharmaron Beijing has ploughed £151 million ($186 million) into a former-AbbVie facility in Liverpool, UK. China-owned Pharmaron acquired the facility from AbbVie in March 2021 for $119 million, propelling it into the cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing space. Now the contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) is building an additional 86,000 square-foot viral vector and DNA manufacturing facility, bringing a four-fold increase in gene therapy process development and analytical capacity accommodating DNA and RNA drug substance, as well as viral…

March 31, 2023

Bicycle and Novartis team to develop Radio-Conjugates

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The collaboration will see Novartis help to discover, develop, and commercialize Bicycle’s Radio-Conjugates (BCRs). Bicycle Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies based on its bicyclic peptide technology, has signed a deal with Novartis to advance and produce BRCs for numerous oncology targets. Under the terms of the agreement, Bicycle will use its bicyclic peptide technology to discover “Bicycles” to be developed into BRCs. Novartis will be responsible for further advancement, production, and commercialization. “It’s a similar construct…

March 29, 2023

BioNTech heads to Israel to build mRNA vax plant

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BioNTech has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build a plant in Jerusalem, Israel to manufacture mRNA-based vaccines. The Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, told delegates at Mind the Tech Conference in London, UK that BioNTech is “one of the miracles” that helped the world make it through the COVID-19 pandemic after jointly developing BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) with Pfizer, the first messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine to receive emergency use approval in December 2020. Lion said he wanted  “to begin by…

March 29, 2023

Thermo Fisher opens UCSF cell therapy plant

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Thermo Fisher Scientific has opened its cell therapy plant located at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Bioprocess vendor Thermo Fisher announced its partnership with UCSF in May 2021 to set up a cell therapy facility. The collaboration is part of Thermo Fisher’s contract development manufacturing offering (CDMO) services. The plant, which is adjacent to UCSF’s Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, is now open and offers clinical and commercial cGMP cell therapy manufacturing services and technology development support. Furthermore,…

March 28, 2023

eBook: The Post-Pandemic Supply Chain

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Supply chains felt the full force of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading the industry to rapidly adopt new protocols. Additional forces have also exposed the supply chain to even more complex issues such as increased lead times and sustainability. This eBook examines the lessons learned from the pandemic that have become standard among biomanufacturers and how rising macroeconomic threats such as inflation and climate change continue to force supply chains to evolve. Jim Marshall, associate director of materials management at Alnylam,…

March 27, 2023

Takeda to build $770m plasma-derived therapy plant in Japan

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The $770 million facility in Osaka, Japan will support global manufacturing and supply capabilities for plasma-derived therapies (PDTs), says Takeda. The 100-billion-yen ($770 million) venture represents Takeda’s biggest manufacturing capacity expansion investment in Japan. According to the firm, the plant will be the “largest of its kind” in the country and is anticipated to be operational by around 2030. Moreover, the facility will have almost five-times the capacity of its current PDT manufacturing site located in Narita, Japan. In turn,…

March 27, 2023