Cell lines

CBM looks to boost viral vector manufacturing capabilities in cell line deal

19-Jan-2023 By Jane Byrne

The unprecedented rise in approvals for new cell and gene therapies, and the increasing industry need for cell lines to support the production of therapeutics, has spurred US CDMO, the Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM), to act

UK ATMP clinical research picture remains positive despite challenging global environment

17-Jan-2023 By Jane Byrne

In 2022, the UK continued to have a signficant footprint in ATMP clinical research, with total ongoing trials increasing from 168 in 2021 to 178 in 2022, according to a new report.

BioNTech acquires GMP manufacturing site in Singapore

14-Nov-2022 By Rachel Arthur

BioNTech will create an mRNA facility in Singapore through the acquisition of a Novartis site: which will become its Regional Headquarters and production center for the Asia Pacific region.

VGXI opens new HQ and manufacturing facility in Texas

24-Oct-2022 By Rachel Arthur

CDMO VGXI has officially opened its new headquarters and manufacturing facility in Conroe, Texas.

Andelyn Biosciences opens GMP manufacturing facility

20-Oct-2022 By Rachel Arthur

US gene therapy CDMO, Andelyn Biosciences, has opened a new GMP clinical and commercial manufacturing facility to support cell and gene therapy (CGT) development and manufacturing.

Cytiva acquires CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, strengthening cell line development

06-Oct-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Cytiva has acquired CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, a German provider of cell line development and viral vector manufacturing technologies.

RoosterBio and MBL Beijing Biotech team up to accelerate advanced therapy manufacturing in China

01-Sep-2022 By Rachel Arthur

RoosterBio has entered into an exclusive distributor partnership with MBL Beijing Biotech: with RoosterBio’s expansion media, exosome collection media, bioreactor media and genetic engineering media to be sold and distributed by MBL Beijing and thus becoming...

Applied StemCell expands manufacturing facility to support cell and gene therapies

30-Aug-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Applied StemCell is expanding its cGMP facility to increase its cell banking and cell product manufacturing capacity.

Resilience and Mayo Clinic create biomanufacturing partnership for rare and complex conditions

16-Aug-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Biomanufacturing company National Resilience has announced a strategic collaboration with Mayo Clinic in biomanufacturing to deliver novel biotherapeutics for rare and complex conditions.

Sartorius to acquire Albumedix for $502m

09-Aug-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Life science group Sartorius will acquire UK recombinant albumin-based solution company Albumedix.

RoslinCT and Lykan Bioscience combine to create advanced cell therapy CDMO

04-Aug-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Edinburgh CDMO RoslinCT and Massachusetts CDMO Lykan Bioscience will combine to create a global advanced therapies CDMO: offering significantly expanded manufacturing capacity.

Thermo Fisher Scientific expands New York cell culture media manufacturing site

04-Aug-2022 By Rachel Arthur

A $76m investment in the facility in Grand Island, New York, will increase capacity to produce raw materials used in manufacture of vaccines and biologic therapies.

Samsung Biologics on track to open ‘super plant’ in October

28-Jul-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Construction of Samsung Biologics’ Plant 4 is on schedule with operations set to start in October, the company confirmed in its Q2 results this morning.

WuXi Biologics to build CRDMO center in Singapore

21-Jul-2022 By Rachel Arthur

CDMO WuXi Biologics will invest $1.4bn in a 10 year investment plan to expand its research, development, and large-scale drug substance and drug product manufacturing capacity and capabilities in Singapore.

Vertex to acquire ViaCyte, targeting type 1 diabetes

12-Jul-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Vertex Pharmaceuticals will acquire ViaCyte, a privately held biotech focused on delivering novel stem cell-derived cell replacement therapies as a functional cure for type 1 diabetes (T1D), for $320m.

‘A new Alzheimer’s treatment is on the horizon’: Cell therapy reverses dementia-like syndrome in dogs

27-Jun-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Australian biotech Skin2Neuron’s new form of cell therapy reversed a dementia-like syndrome in dogs, according to results of a veterinary trial.

New collaboration to accelerate advancements in gene therapies for dementia

20-Jun-2022 By Rachel Arthur

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) and the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) have announced a collaboration to accelerate clinical development of adeno-associated virus (AAV) based gene therapies for dementia.

bio 2022

ten23 adds manufacturing building in rapid build out

14-Jun-2022 By Ben Hargreaves

The newly launched CDMO plans to set up two new manufacturing lines, after expanding into a 5,000-square-meter manufacturing facility.

Charles River and ASC Therapeutics expand gene therapy manufacturing agreement

13-Jun-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Charles River Laboratories International and ASC Therapeutics have announced plans to manufacture ASC618, a second-generation gene therapy for hemophilia A.

Evotec expands cell therapy manufacturing with acquisition

31-May-2022 By Ben Hargreaves

Evotec agrees to acquire Rigenerand, which adds a manufacturing facility capable of producing cell therapies to its infrastructure in Italy.

AGC Biologics adds new viral vector suspension capabilities at US cell & gene facility

19-May-2022 By Rachel Arthur

AGC Biologics will add viral vector suspension technology and capacity for the development and manufacturing of gene therapies at its commercial-grade campus in Longmont, Colorado.

Swiss biotech R&D investments reach record high

09-May-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Capital investments in Swiss biotech companies reached CHF 3.33bn ($3.53bn) in 2021; while R&D investments increased to a record-high CHF 2.56bn ($2.71bn).

Matica Bio opens new Texas cell and gene therapy facility

06-May-2022 By Rachel Arthur

CDMO Matica Bio has opened a new 45,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the production of viral vectors and cell-based products used in cell and gene therapies, vaccines, oncolytic therapies and other genetic medicines.

ExcellGene and Cytena team up to optimize workflows for mAb and therapeutic protein manufacturing

05-May-2022 By Jane Byrne

ExcellGene SA, a Swiss biologics focused CDMO, has established a collaboration agreement with German biological cell instrument developer, Cytena.

Catalent acquires New Jersey cell therapy development and manufacturing facility

25-Apr-2022 By Rachel Arthur

Catalent has acquired a commercial-scale cell therapy manufacturing facility in Princeton, New Jersey, from Erytech Pharma for $44.5m.

CytoImmune Therapeutics opens clinical cell manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico

28-Mar-2022 By Rachel Arthur

CytoImmune Therapeutics, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing a novel class of engineered natural killer (NK) cell-based cancer therapies, has announced the opening of its clinical cell manufacturing facility in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico.

WHO establishes global biomanufacturing training hub in Korea

25-Feb-2022 By Rachel Arthur

A global biomanufacturing training hub will be established in Korea to serve low- and middle-income countries wishing to produce biologicals such as vaccines, insulin, monoclonal antibodies and cancer treatments.

Wheeler Bio looks to solve tech transfer challenges, raises $14m in seed funding

11-Jan-2022 By Jane Byrne

Wheeler Bio, a newly established company aiming accelerate the translation of therapeutic innovation into clinical impact, recently closed a US$14m seed financing round.

Tech transfer box ticked in Catalent and BrainStorm cell therapy alliance

09-Dec-2021 By Jane Byrne

Catalent is reporting that the technology transfer for the manufacture of BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics’ autologous cellular therapy at its facility in Houston, Texas has been finalized.

Operations begin at new Genezen lentiviral and retroviral vector lab in Indianapolis

06-Dec-2021 By Jane Byrne

Genezen, a cell and gene therapy focused CDMO, has just opened a new process development and analytical lab, a build that represents the first phase of a 75,000+ square foot cGMP-compliant lentiviral and retroviral vector production facility in Indianapolis.

Emulate enhances tech aimed at supporting disease research and drug development

22-Nov-2021 By Jane Byrne

Emulate, Inc recently launched the Zoë-CM2 Culture Module, a second-generation Zoë instrument core to its ‘Organ-on-a-Chip’ based Human Emulation System.

CJ Cheiljedang set to acquire Batavia Biosciences for $226m

08-Nov-2021 By Jane Byrne

CJ Cheiljedang, a subsidiary of South Korea's food and entertainment giant, CJ Group, is about to enter the biopharma CDMO business.

Sphere Fluidics closes $40m funding round

05-Nov-2021 By Jane Byrne

Sphere Fluidics, a UK company that has developed and is commercializing single cell analysis systems underpinned by its picodroplet technology, has just closed a US$40m investment round.

Synthetic biology innovator opens new campus to speed up drug discovery

21-Oct-2021 By Jane Byrne

Absci Corporation says its newly opened campus in Vancouver, Washington, in the US, expands its ability to accelerate discovery and development of biologic drugs.

Samsung Biologics to help Enzolytics advance clinical development of mAbs

11-Oct-2021 By Jane Byrne

Samsung Biologics and Enzolytics have entered into a strategic CDMO partnership agreement targeting monoclonal antibody production.

Absci and EQRx in tie-up to accelerate production of cheaper, protein based therapeutics

06-Oct-2021 By Jane Byrne

Absci Corp, a synthetic biology firm, is partnering with pharma company, EQRx, to jointly engineer and develop several clinical candidates across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology and immunology.

Bone Therapeutics inks iPSC related research partnership

28-Sep-2021 By Jane Byrne

A new deal sees Bone Therapeutics gain access to iPSC derived, genetically engineered MSCs.

Special Edition: Reviewing the advanced therapy pipeline

Maximizing the potency of autologous cell lines: Orgenesis in tie-up with Israeli technology provider

01-Sep-2021 By Jane Byrne

Orgenesis has set up a partnership with Savicell Diagnostics to advance the development, QC testing and manufacturing of its cell and gene therapies.

Special Edition: Meeting demand for viral vectors

VIVEbiotech looks to overcome challenges related to LVV production

18-Aug-2021 By Jane Byrne

VIVEbiotech, a lentivirus-specialized contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) that produces vectors for projects from early-stage to GMP production, is working on enhancing intrinsic lentivirus characteristics and streamlining the process....

Biotech Absci sees shares soar in IPO debut

27-Jul-2021 By Jane Byrne

Absci Corp, a Vancouver, Washington headquartered synthetic biology company developing technologies to accelerate drug discovery, has gone public.

Cobra flags successful production of plasmids for epilepsy targeted gene therapy

30-Jun-2021 By Jane Byrne

Cobra Biologics, the gene therapy division of the Charles River owned Cognate BioServices, and Sweden's CombiGene recently announced the successful production and quality assurance of the plasmids to be used in the GMP production of the gene therapy,...

ViaCyte reports positive cell replacement result for diabetes

29-Jun-2021 By Ben Hargreaves

The company publishes results showing positive preliminary data for its islet cell replacement therapy for type 1 diabetes.

Genezen breaks ground on cGMP lentiviral vector production facility

28-Jun-2021 By Jane Byrne

Genezen Laboratories, Inc, a US cell and gene therapy contract development and manufacturing Organization (CDMO) is set to build a 75,000+ square foot cGMP-compliant lentiviral vector production facility in Indianapolis.

Clean Biologics gains foothold in North American market, adds vaccine and biologics focused CDMO to group

05-May-2021 By Jane Byrne

French pharma services provider, Clean Biologics, has acquired Canadian CDMO, Biodextris, in a move it says will boost its analytical and process development, and early-phase clinical manufacturing and quality control testing services for clients in the...

Takara Bio in stem cell licensing deal aimed at supporting cell-based therapy R&D for diabetes

05-May-2021 By Jane Byrne

Takara Bio Europe has announced a licensing agreement with Denmark’s PanCryos, a pre-clinical stage biotech company, for its clinical-grade human embryonic stem (hES) cell lines, starting material for cell therapy development.

Membranes unlock potential to increase cell-free vaccine production

22-Apr-2021 By Jane Byrne

Synthetic biologists based at Northwestern University in the US have discovered a new way to increase production yields of protein-based vaccines five-fold, significantly broadening access to potentially lifesaving medicines.

UK deal sees consolidation of two players in the iPSC space

18-Mar-2021 By Jane Byrne

Axol Biosciences, a UK provider of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived cells, media, and characterization services, has merged with Scotland based, Censo Biotechnologies, a cell biology CRO with expertise in iPSC-related technologies.

New antibody discovery platform could help accelerate CAR-T therapeutic development

12-Jan-2021 By Jane Byrne

UK biotech, OXGENE, says its SLIM platform for discovery of antibodies against membrane proteins in their native configuration in mammalian cells could support CAR-T therapeutics.

UK biotech in licensing deal with BMS on antibodies screening tool

13-Oct-2020 By Jane Byrne

IONTAS has announced a deal with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) in relation to its platform for antibody identification.

Fujifilm Irvine Scientific takes on distribution of substrate that supports cell therapy research

30-Sep-2020 By Jane Byrne

Fujifilm Irvine Scientific has become the exclusive, worldwide distributor of cellnest, a recombinant peptide attachment substrate that is said to provide optimal adhesion and proliferation of stem cells in chemically defined, animal component-free conditions.