Evonetix will use the funding to accelerate the development of its DNA synthesis technology platform aimed at enabling synthetic biology. We spoke to CEO Tim Brears to find out more. Cambridge, UK-based Evonetix was founded in 2015 with a focus on synthetic biology. In 2018, a Series A round raised $12.3 million and now the firm has raised $30 million in a Series B investment, led by west-coast investor Foresite Capital. The funding will be used to accelerate internal technology…
WindMIL Therapeutics has upped a contract with Cognate BioServices to make its marrow-infiltrating lymphocyte (MIL) cell therapies but says it is developing plans to eventually build in-house manufacturing capabilities. WindMIL, a cancer immunotherapy firm developing autologous cell therapies based on its marrow-infiltrating lymphocytes (MILs), initially began working with contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Cognate last year. Now the firm has expanded the contract to add extra clinical manufacturing capacity. “We are securing one additional manufacturing suite at Cognate’s Memphis,…
Merck KGaA says bioprocess M&A is significantly different than in the pharma world and sees no challenge to its MilliporeSigma division from Thermo Fisher’s recent acquisitions. Last week, bioprocess vendor Thermo Fisher agreed to buy Qiagen for $11.5 billion (€10.1 billion). The deal will bolster Thermo Fisher’s diagnostics business and add sample preparation, assay development and bioinformatics capabilities to its genetic analysis and biosciences capabilities. It is also the latest billion-dollar plus deal for Thermo Fisher, which has in recent…
Lonza has partnered with several academic clinical centers to assess the manufacture of cell therapies in a decentralized setting using its automated Cocoon point-of-care (PoC) platform. Swiss contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Lonza announced independent research collaborations with Stanford University School of Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. The collaborations will see the tech transfer of cell therapy manufacturing processes developed at the respective research institutes into the Cocoon platform. The Cocoon system…
BrevisRefero has launched a Request For Proposal (RFP) platform aimed at helping biopharma better select its third-party manufacturing partners. The pharma world has for years relied on outsourcing partners. Contract research organizations (CROs) are used to carry out clinical trials, third parties manage transport and logistics, and of course contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) support production of nearly every component of the drug production process. Now the biopharma space can outsource the outsourcing process itself, through an online RFP…
The biopharma space has stepped up its efforts to both prevent and treat the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that is threatening to bring the world to its knees. A month is a very long time when it comes to infectious diseases. The first cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) led to a response to contain the virus, but the difficulties of containment and the nature of international travel means cases and deaths have become global. The latest statistics place the…
In-licensing a Lucentis biosimilar goes “hand-in-hand†with its internally developed Eylea biosimilar, says Coherus BioSciences. Californian biosimilar developer Coherus acquired the US commercial rights in November to commercialize a version of Lucentis (ranibizumab) from Bioeq, a joint venture between Polpharma Group and Strüngmann Group. The ophthalmic monoclonal antibody pulled in US sales of CHF 1.83 billion ($1.9 billion) for Roche/Genentech in 2019. Concurrently, Coherus has a biosimilar candidate looking to take on Regeneron’s Eylea (aflibercept) in the form of CHS-2020.…
Potential upcoming approvals and launches of subcutaneous formulations of monoclonal antibodies could prove a boon for Halozyme, which licenses its Enhanze technology to Janssen and Roche, among others. In 2019, Halozyme Therapeutics announced its pancreatic cancer drug candidate PEGPH20 did not meet a Phase 3 study’s main goal of improving how long patients lived. As such, the firm laid plans to restructure, ending its R&D oncology operations in favor of growing its formulation platform offering, Enhanze. The technology consists of…
The expansion at a cell culture facility in Research Triangle Park will feed the demand for growing biologics pipelines, says CDMO Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies. Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Fujifilm broke ground on a 31,778 square-foot extension at its site in Research Triangle Park, Morrisville, North Carolina, which will add recovery and purification suites to support biomanufacturing. The firm says it will increase its cell culture manufacturing capacity by approximately 25% and microbial capacity by approximately 50% when the…
Repligen says it will continue to expand capacity to feed demand for its OPUS range of prepacked chromatography columns. For the full year 2019, revenues at bioprocess vendor Repligen Corporation came in at $270 million (€250 million), up from $194 million in 2018. Revenues grew across all the firm’s divisions, with organic growth of 20%, 30% and 40% for Repligen’s proteins, filtration and chromatography franchises, respectively. And within the chromatography franchise, the firm’s OPUS range of prepacked chromatography columns stood…