US contract research firm Charles River says its expanded manufacturing business will focus mainly on cell therapy production. CEO Jim Foster outlined Charles River’s plan this week, telling analysts the firm’s recent acquisition Cognate BioServices would boost the contract research organization’s (CRO) biologics business. “Cognate gives us the ability, and particularly in combination with HemaCare and Cellero, to provide the cells to do the process development, to do the clinical trial scale up, and ultimately, to provide commercial quantities specifically…

Autologous therapy developers should consider “turnkey” manufacturing systems and robotic arms to minimize costs and manual handling, says an expert. The medical benefits of patient-specific, autologous cell therapies are proven according to Greg Russotti, Century Therapeutics’ CTO who told BPI West attendees the challenge now is reducing the cost of making such products. “Autologous [therapies] are proven to make major differences in patients’ lives. And, you know, no one can say they’re cures yet, but in some cases they are…

Moderna has another COVID-19 vaccine in its clinical pipeline, which if successful will potentially make distribution and administration easier. The firm already has an mRNA cell-free COVID-19 vaccine, 1273, approved under FDA emergency authorization. However, it is developing an additional COVID-19 vaccine candidate coded 1283, which it believes will be easier to allocate and administrate due to it potentially being refrigerator stable. According to the firm, the next generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate is made from portions of the spike protein,…