Deals, Development and Manufacturing

The companies have entered into a manufacturing agreement to supply leronlimab, an investigational new drug currently being used in clinical trial protocols for COVID-19.

Kindeva Drug Delivery plans capital investment and jobs growth.

The goal of the collaboration is to manufacture up to one billion does per year of mRNA-1273, Moderna’s vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

Sartorius adds chromatography systems and resins, tangential flow filtration, and biomolecular characterization technologies.

Catalent and Johnson & Johnson announce joint investment and tech transfer to prepare for rapid scale-up and segregated cGMP commercial manufacturing capacity.

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford have announced that they will collaborate on the global development and distribution of the university’s potential recombinant adenovirus vaccine aimed at preventing COVID-19 infection.

ILC Therapeutics, a biotech company based in the United Kingdom, has discovered two separate novel treatments for patients suffering with COVID-19 prior to needing ventilators.

Solentim and ATUM will bundle together the Leap-In Transposase platform with the VIPS single cell cloning instrument for cell line development.

Merck will provide funding and will work with researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology to identify targets for therapeutic intervention and vaccine development.

A report into the Swiss biotech sector has shown that there is continued growth in the sector, which has received investments from public and private companies worth CHF 1.2 billion (US$1.2 billion).

MicrofluidX has raised £1.4 million (US$1.7 million) in seed funding, which it will use to develop its novel cell bioprocessing technology for cell and gene therapy.

The vaccine will be based on a ReiThera-proprietary simian adenoviral vector with strong immunological potency and low pre-existing immunity in humans.

Emergent will offer up its drug substance manufacturing services with support by investments from Johnson & Johnson starting in 2020.

Bayer will provide CAD $1.5 million (USD$1 million) toward two studies to evaluate its chloroquine and interferon beta-1b combination therapies.

The companies will collaborate on the discovery and development of next-generation drug and engineered cell therapies focused on natural killer cells.

Through the agreement, BARDA will support the advancement of the vaccine candidate to FDA licensure and will handle all late-stage clinical development programs, as well as the scale-up of mRNA-1273 manufacture in 2020.

This milestone achievement will allow the companies to move forward with developing a GMP-compliant manufacturing process for clinical testing.

Biopharmaceutical company, TScan Therapeutics, has entered into a collaboration agreement with Novartis that is aimed at the discovery and development of novel T-cell receptor (TCR) therapies for solid tumors.

Dutch company HALIX has announced it is joining a consortium of partners that are all under the guidance of the University of Oxford to provide good manufacturing practice (GMP) manufacturing services for a COVID-19 vaccine.

Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have revealed that they are joining forces to develop an adjuvanted vaccine using their respective technologies that can be used to fight COVID-19.

AstraZeneca has announced it will be commencing a randomized, global clinical trial to assess the efficacy and safety of Calquence (acalabrutinib) in treating the exaggerated immune response of patients with COVID-19.

With the acquisition, Orgenesis will combine TamirBio’s ranpirnase antiviral platform with its Bioxome technology.

The companies announced they are entering into a strategic collaboration under which Blackstone will provide up to $2 billion to fund Alnylam’s RNAi drugs to treat a range of diseases.

The partners have formed a joint venture to produce muscle-derived mesenchymal stem cells as a source of exosomes and other cellular products to develop related therapies and advance clinical trials.

Industry opportunities are increasing for biosimilars, but companies should pay close attention to delivery device design to facilitate success.