Deals, Development and Manufacturing

Novartis will pay Voyager up to $1.75 billion for access to Voyager’s novel Tracer AAV capsids for potential use with three CNS targets.

Genoox will use their genomic data platform to validate Element's AVITI system.

A consortium of nine development partners will support Biovac's expansion of its existing vaccine manufacturing plant capacity, while Biovac itself aims to raise funds to boost increased vaccine manufacturing capacity across Africa.

Thermo Fisher and Symphogen have extended their collaboration involving improved data workflow, which supports the discovery and development of new cancer treatments.

Under a collaboration, IDT Biologika and Exothera will conduct feasibility studies on scaling up the manufacturing process for viral vector-based vaccines.

MilliporeSigma and Waters will work together to build an extractables and leachables (E&L) reference library.

Scottish Enterprise has awarded £20 million (US$27 million) to Valneva Scotland to advance vaccine development.

Moderna and Thermo Fisher Scientific have formed a collaboration to leverage dedicated commercial fill/finish manufacturing capacity in the US for mRNA vaccines and therapies.

Recipharm has strengthened its biologics manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of both Vibalogics and Arranta Bio.

The commercialization and licensing deal will see Biogen commercialize Xbrane’s Xcimzane, a proposed biosimilar for CIMZIA (certolizumab pegol).

ONK will receive non-exclusive rights to Intellia’s proprietary ex-vivo CRISPR/Cas9 technology in the development of five allogeneic NK cell therapies.

ImmunoGen and Eli Lilly and Company have entered into an agreement that gives Lilly exclusive rights to research, develop, and commercialize ADCs designed for targets selected by Lilly from ImmunoGen’s camptothecin technology.

The deal between ProBioGen and AstraZeneca will allow AstraZeneca to use ProBioGen’s GlymaxX technology.

In an agreement with MaaT Pharma, Skyepharma will build MaaT a dedicated 1500-m² microbiome ecosystem therapies manufacturing site.

Sartorius Stedim Biotech has completed the acquisition of the chromatography equipment division of Novasep.

CGT Catapult has partnered with MICA Biosystems to advance MICA’s regenerative medicine technology to the UK’s MHRA.

Gandeeva raisded $40 million to advance its AI-driven cryo-EM platform, with which it will develop new therapeutics based on the precise imaging of protein–drug interactions.

Eli Lilly and Company has entered into a research and collaboration agreement with Entos Pharmaceuticals to develop new therapeutics for treating neurologic disorders.

Arranta Bio will use Cytiva’s FlexFactory single-use manufacturing platform to produce mRNA vaccines.

Recipharm will build up its biologics service offering with the acquisition of GenIbet.

Samsung Biologics has signed an agreement with Biogen to acquire Biogen’s 50% stake in Samsung Bioepis, a joint venture formed by the two companies, for up to $2.3 billion.

PhoreMost has entered into separate collaboration agreements with Polaris Quantum Biotech and NeoCura Bio-Medical Technology to discover and develop novel cancer therapeutics.

Merck and Ridgeback Therapeutics will supply UNICEF with up to three million capsules of molnupiravir through the first half of 2022.

UCB and Zogenix have agreed to an acquisition deal totaling nearly $2 billion.

In their collaboration, Bristol Myers Squibb and Prellis Biologics aim to generate human antibody libraries for select targets to enable drug discovery.

After a previously announced merger, Protagen Protein Services, BioAnalytix, and GeneWerk have formed a new CRO under the name ProtaGene.

Pfizer will pay Beam $300 million upfront to conduct research on three undisclosed base editing targets in the liver, muscle, and central nervous system.

The collaboration between Bristol Myers Squibb and Century Therapeutics will combine Century’s iPSC-derived allogeneic cell therapy platform with Bristol Myers Squibb’s expertise in cell therapy and oncology drug development.

The COVID-19 pandemic generated partnerships among organizations with the goal of changing the way in which assay development and tech transfer of these assays are conducted moving forward.

The agreeement will add to Merck KGaA’s LNP and mRNA capabilities.