BiomX has announced plans to construct a clinical facility in Israel capable of making host bacteria in a 20-40 liter bioreactor for the production of bacteriophages. The facility in Ness Ziona, Israel will primarily be used to manufacture clinical supply of BiomX’s candidate BX002 as it enters the clinic as a potential treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The candidate is a phage; a virus that infects and replicates within a bacterium. Such therapies were used extensively in the Soviet…

Modular facilities could prove greater than the sum of their parts with innovation increasing biopharma interest in off-the-shelf plants. An increasing number of drug industry announcements about new plants in recent years have emphasised the “modular” nature of the project. Pfizer, for example, opted for off-shelf-tech for the facility it set up in Hangzhou, China in 2016. The site, which won an ISPE award, makes biosimilars for the local market. Pfizer cited flexibility as a key motivation for choosing the…