Having originally teamed up in 2020, the two CDMOs have rebranded their combined drug substance and fill/finish service offering under the ‘Xpert Alliance’ umbrella. The German contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) formed a strategic alliance in July 2020 to offer customers Rentschler’s drug substance manufacturing capacity in combination with Vetter’s aseptic fill and finish and secondary packaging services. Nearly two years on, and the partnership has been formalized further through the creation of the ‘Xpert Alliance’ brand; a “visualization…

Shape Therapeutics says its research on RNA editing technology could make it easier to repair disease-causing mutations without compromising efficiency. Prashant Mali, the co-founder of Shape, and his colleagues claim they have engineered a “new kind of guide RNA” that can recruit the cell’s own ADARs (an enzyme naturally found in the human body) to carry out edits at a precise target RNA region. According to Shape, ADARs have the ability to alter the RNA code and correct G-to-A mutations,…

Ginkgo Bioworks says the acquisition of Swiss start-up FGen will significantly increase its cell screening capabilities.   The deal, of which specific financial details have not been disclosed, sees Ginkgo add FGen’s technology to its existing screening systems. “Acquiring FGen substantially enhances Ginkgo’s platform by complementing our […] automation-powered high throughput arrayed screening systems,” Nikos Reppas, senior director of Foundry Technology at Ginkgo told BioProcess Insider. “More specifically, FGen’s technology greatly widens […] our Design-Build-Test-Learn strain development cycle, allowing us…

Novartis will make a macrophage-based cell therapy targeting breast cancer for Carisma Therapeutics from its Morris Plain, New Jersey site. An initial agreement signed this week will see Novartis manufacture a HER 2 targeted CAR-Macrophage (CAR-M) cell therapy for Carisma from the beginning of 2023. The candidate, CT-0508, is the first CAR-Macrophage cell therapy to enter clinical trials. Preclinical trials have shown the potential to overcome key challenges faced by other cell therapies treating solid tumors, including: The capacity to…

The partnership will see IDT Biologika and Exothera collaborate to develop a large-scale manufacturing process for viral vector-based vaccines. According to both contract development manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), the study will focus on Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) as a first example for IDT’s wide range of vector technologies. “The MVA is a viral vector that has been successfully validated with a long history of use in clinical trials. MVA expressing recombinant antigens is a flexible vaccine tool that has been shown…