Deals, Development and Manufacturing

In collaboration with Pall Corportion, biotech company Freeline completed the first full-scale run at its newly commissioned, GMP gene-therapy manufacturing facility in the UK.

The companies will join forces to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to discover and develop new treatments for two chronic diseases.

Intertek has announced the expansion of its pharmaceutical services laboratory in Melbourn, near Cambridge, UK, through the acquisition of a new 20,000 sq. ft facility.

Expansion at GSK’s Hamilton, MT site is designed to boost vaccine production capacity.

The company passed a seven-day FDA surveillance GMP inspection and announced two upcoming manufacturing partnerships.

Catalent’s acquisition of Paragon Bioservices will provide expertise in expanding gene therapy market.

Brexit has the potential to rumble on until Oct. 31, 2019 as the UK is granted a further six-month extension by European Union leaders.

Legacy Pharmaceuticals has entered into a collaboration with SCHOTT to solve a technical challenge of leaching that is occurring with an antiviral drug.

Shareholders have approved the issuance of Bristol-Myers Squibb common stock for the pending $74-billion merger with Celgene.

With the spin-off, Alcon will operate as a standalone company, and Novartis will focus on its core innovative medicines.

Amgen issued a notice of termination of its migraine collaboration agreements with Novartis, against which Novartis filed a lawsuit in response.

The companies form a strategic joint venture for developing and manufacturing live biotherapeutics.

XenTech and the Gustave Roussy Cancer Center have signed a strategic collaboration agreement aimed at the development of a collection of tumor explant models from patients with acquired resistance to targeted therapies.

The collaboration will apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to the development of drugs for treating a range of cancers.

Valitacell, Solentim, and Microcoat were awarded EUR 3.5 million (US$4 million) to produce an integrated platform to deposit, culture, profile, and select optimal cells for biologic drug manufacturing.

Worth up to $605 million, the collaboration will focus on studying a preclinical novel target that could lead to potential new treatments for autoimmune diseases.

PDC*line Pharma has entered into a licensing agreement with LG Chem to develop a lung cancer vaccine in Asia.

Cell Mogrify (Mogrify), has been granted funding by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, to accelerate regenerative cell therapies.

Merck KGaA opened a collaborative bio/pharma development facility in Molsheim, France and announced an investment plan through 2025 for its Darmstadt, Germany headquarters.

The companies aim to assess automated CAR-T cell therapy manufacturing at the point-of-care and develop technologies to facilitate patient access to immunotherapies.

Stream Bio entered into a new agreement with DBA Italia to launch Stream Bio’s nanotech-based bioimaging probes in Italy.

The companies will join forces to improve gene- and cell-therapy manufacturing using the cloud and machine learning.

The acquisition of the site in Copenhagen, Denmark, will significantly expand Fujifilm’s capacity and capabilities.

Procarta Biosystems has received investment from Novo Holdings REPAIR Impact Fund to the tune of €1.5 million, which will be used to develop a new class of antibiotics to tackle AMR.

Iksuda Therapeutics and Femtogenix, have signed a license agreement aimed at progressing Iksuda’s lead ADC to clinic, with the aim of targeting difficult-to-treat solid tumors.

The companies will use GeoVax’s vaccine technology to develop malaria vaccine candidates.

Sartorius Stedim Biotech (SSB) and Novasep will partner to develop systems for membrane chromatography using Novasep’s BioSC platform and SSB’s single-use technology.

The acquisition will establish a clinical pipeline for Biogen of gene-therapy candidates in ophthalmology.

Valitacell and Solentim, have announced a collaboration aimed at the acceleration of discovery and development of biologic drugs and advanced cell therapies.

A multi-partner collaboration has been announced, which will target the acceleration of the development of automated microfluidic systems for rapid and high-throughput gene editing in mammalian cell lines.