Wednesday, October 2, 2019 Daily Archives

Moderna to expand mRNA plant with tech development center

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Moderna will build an 85,000 square-foot technical development center at its recently opened manufacturing site in Massachusetts to support its messenger RNA (mRNA) pipeline. mRNA products themselves are neither small molecules nor traditional biologics, but rather a ‘set of instructions’ directing cells to, essentially, ‘use the human body as the bioreactor’ and make the proteins needed to prevent or fight diseases. Moderna Therapeutics has over 20 mRNA-based products in its pipeline, including prophylactic vaccines, cancer vaccines, intratumoral immuno-oncology candidates, and…

October 2, 2019

Astellas ups MA cell therapy presence with $13m incubator investments

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The support of two biotech incubators operated by LabCentral is the latest investment by Astellas Pharma in the Massachusetts cell and gene therapy landscape. Of the $13 million (€11.9 million) investment, $12.5 million will be pumped into a facility being developed by LabCentral in Cambridge, Massachusetts, set to house a lab space for start-up companies to conduct process development studies and a non-GMP pilot plant for cell and gene therapies. The rest of the investment will see Astellas become a…

October 2, 2019

Samsung BioLogics boost to cell line dev with patent win over Lonza

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Lonza says it is “clearly disappointed†after the Intellectual Property Tribunal in Korea ruled in favor of Samsung BioLogics in invalidating a patent relating to cell line development. Samsung BioLogics challenged fellow contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) in July 2017 regarding Lonza’s patent 1302904, entitled ‘Mammalian Expression Vector Comprising the MCMV Promoter and First Intron of HCMV Major Immediate Early Gene.’ The patent relates to a vector for transferring a gene developed for producing an antibody into a cell…

October 2, 2019