The two-stage collaboration will aim to drive development of high-capacity production processes for AAV-based products.

Coave Therapeutics, a biotechnology firm focused on developing gene therapies for central nervous system (CNS) and eye diseases, aims to secure its process development capabilities and infrastructure needs through collaboration with contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) ABL, which specializes in the manufacturing of viruses for vaccine candidates and gene and cancer therapies.

“Coave has already developed a process at laboratory scale and has several patents. Coave has a solid pipeline of AAVs in development. ABL has a solid expertise in process scale-up and characterization of viral vectors, in suspension up to 200 L,” a spokesperson for the firm told us.

Image: Stock Photo Secrets

“ABL has already produced a wide range of viral vectors using a diversity of cell lines. We have put in place a robust and efficient organization to ensure seamless and successful transfer from process development to manufacturing under GMP conditions to support clinical trials”

Under the terms of the deal, the firms will co-develop production technologies for adeno associated virus (AAV) based gene therapy products, which will take place at ABL’s facility located in Lyon, France.

The second stage of the partnership will provide Coave with an option to secure process development capacity and laboratory space in ABL’s Lyon plant. The firm says this will allow them to continue to develop and scale-up manufacturing technologies for AAV-based products as well as its AAV-Ligand Conjugate vectors (ALIGATER) platform.

Furthermore, Coave claims the deal will strengthen its ability to produce large-scale and high-quality gene therapy products based on this new generation of advanced AAV vectors.

“Our collaboration with ABL, a best-in-class and complementary partner for Coave, is a major step in our strategy towards the vertical integration of our R&D capacities, which will be crucial in enabling us to control the development and manufacture of our pipeline products in an end-to-end manner,” said Rodolphe Clerval, CEO, Coave Therapeutics.

“The manufacturing processes developed through this partnership will be critical on the path to achieving our future clinical and commercial development milestones, in particular for our CNS programs addressing large patient populations.”

The financial terms have not been disclosed and the spokesperson said there is “no termination date anticipated” with the partnership.