Wednesday, April 17, 2019 Daily Archives

A Perspective on GMPs for Cellular Therapy Commercialization

Cellular therapies can be classified by therapeutic indication, by cell types, and by whether cells are taken from and administered to the same individual (autologous) or derived from healthy donors (allogeneic). Regulatory classification of cellular therapies differentiates among minimally manipulated cells for homologous use, transplants or transfusions, and cells that are more than minimally manipulated and regulated as medicines. Medical cellular therapies must meet quality, safety, and efficacy standards to obtain marketing authorization (1–8). Such therapies can be subdivided into…

Scientific and Technological Advancements in Applications of Single-Use Technology: A Conference Report

Single-use technology (SUT) has been used increasingly both in clinical and commercial biomanufacturing (1). Proven major advantages include relatively low capital investment, elimination of batch-to-batch cross contamination and reuse cleaning validation efforts, flexibility in manufacturing, and shortened product lifecycles. However, some challenges and barriers to implementation remain: Consumables costs are increasing. Specific regulatory guidance is lacking, as is component interchangeability and standardization. And few if any leak-proof components/systems are available. International groups and associations focused on setting best practices and…

Cell and Gene Therapy Data Management: Solutions to Address Complex Challenges

At the Phacilitate Leaders World and World Stem Cell Summit 2019, held 22–25 January, Steve Goodman (head of drug product manufacturing at bluebird bio) and Robert Di Scipio (CEO of Skyland Analytics) shared the podium to address what the product and process data-management ecosystem looks like for cell and gene therapy (CGT) development and manufacturing. A starting point for their presentation was that CGT development presents significant data challenges: capturing and analyzing product development and manufacturing data, tracking the collection,…

Celularity leases NJ plant to make its off-the-shelf stem cell therapies

Celularity says the 147,000 square-foot campus in Florham Park will support its allogeneic placental-derived natural killer (NK) cell therapy candidates, and more investment is to come. Clinical stage cell therapy firm Celularity has a pipeline of off-the-shelf placental-derived Natural Killer (PNK) therapies in development, with its lead program CYNK-001 set to move into Phase II trials for multiple myeloma and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) this year. To support its pipeline, the firm has entered a long-term lease agreement for a…

CRISPR consortium launched to improve CHO cell lines

Horizon Discovery has launched an industry consortium aimed at improving the CHO expression platform using modern gene-editing tools such as CRISPR and rAAV. At BPI Europe in Vienna, Austria earlier this month, cell line technologies firm Horizon Discovery announced plans to create an industry group to address inadequacies with the prevalent Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) expression platform by using the gene-editing tools CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) and rAAV (recombinant adeno-associated virus). “The CHO cell line has hardly…