Monday, December 6, 2021 Daily Archives

What’s new in AAV manufacturing? 3 takeaways from Thermo Fisher Scientific

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From virtual regulatory inspections to optimization of scalable AAV production, the gene and cell therapy fields continued to innovate and evolve throughout the pandemic. Thermo Fisher Scientific hosted an interactive workshop highlighting some of these developments, including a new AAV production system, a custom media platform for viral production cell lines, and changes to the regulatory process. Read on to get a taste of those insights. A Helper-Free AAV Production System Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are among the most promising gene…

December 6, 2021

Doggybone DNA ‘ideal tech’ for pandemic vaccine response, says Touchlight

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Doggybone DNA vaccines can overcome the costly manufacturing limitations of plasmid DNA and the complex formulations and cold-chain issues of mRNA, says Touchlight’s chief research officer. With the successful rollout of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech’s respective COVID-19 vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines have shown overwhelming success for pandemic response due to their rapidity of manufacture and induction of robust immune responses, but limitations remain. “Most nucleic acid vaccines are mRNA-based, which induce high titers of neutralizing antibodies (nAb) but lower induction of…

December 6, 2021

Danaher and COVID: $2bn orders for 2022 without potential Omicron windfall

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COVID-19 continues to drive bioprocess orders for Danaher Corporation, but the extended vaccine rollout and the unknown impact of the Omicron variant could see a further surge in 2022. In April, Danaher spoke about its efforts in the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, adding an estimated $2 billion in 2021 revenue to its bioprocess businesses Cytiva and Pall. As 2022 appears over the horizon, CEO Rainer Blair told delegates at the Evercore ISI Annual HealthCONx Conference orders for COVID-related…

December 6, 2021

Resilience buys cell free synthesis tech firm SwiftScale Biologics

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Resilience has bought cell-free protein synthesis tech firm SwiftScale Biologics in a deal designed to support novel therapeutic research. The San Diego based contractor – officially called National Resilience – announced the acquisition late last week, citing growing biopharmaceutical industry interest in cell-free protein synthesis as the prompt for the deal. Resilience CEO Rahul Singhvi suggested the approach could help industry overcome some of the hurdles that complicate commercial manufacture and scale-up. “Biologics production today is limited to what can…

December 6, 2021