Milan, Italy is the place to be this week as over 20,000 pharma delegates shake off the past 20 months and attend CPhI Worldwide 2021. BioProcess Insider donned a facemask and presented its ‘Green Pass’ to attend the world’s largest pharma show, CPhI Worldwide in Milan. Naturally numbers were down on 2019’s event in Frankfurt, Germany but with over 1,300 exhibitors and more than 20,000 attendees it is fair to say that the appetite for face-to-face events among the life…
Longer-term funding in biotech has led to deeper partnerships with CDMOs says Aragen Bioscience, which is looking to establish its own biomanufacturing capabilities in the US. Through investment from parent firm GVK Bio, contract research organization (CRO) Aragen has grown its business to include two sites in San Francisco offering efficacy studies, protein analytics, and cell line development services. But for several years, the company has looked to enter the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) space, firstly by adding master…
The US Department of Health and Human Services has terminated a long-term CDMO partnership with Emergent BioSolutions, which included a $628 million deal to produce COVID-19 vaccines. In 2012, Emergent BioSolutions entered into a public-private partnership for pandemic preparedness with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). When COVID-19 hit, the partnership was expanded with Emergent receiving $628 million as part of the federal government’s pandemic response Operation…
Catalent’s Q3 results revealed the demand for its CGT services means it is willing to increase its investments in the sector. Contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Catalent revealed plans in September 2020 to invest $130 million at its gene therapy campus in Harmans, Maryland to add five additional Phase III through to commercial-scale manufacturing suites. Last week, the firm said it would shell out a further $230 million at the same site to construct three additional multi-room commercial suites. While…
BioProcess Insider spoke with SwedenBIO CEO Helena StrigÃ¥rd about the cell and gene therapy industry in Sweden and its future.  StrigÃ¥rd has been at the private non-profit organization firm SwedenBIO for four years and discusses its focus on driving the cell and gene therapy (CGT) sector in Sweden, the challenges it faces, and her predictions for the future. BioProcess Insider (BI): Is there a trend you are seeing in the CGT space in Sweden? Helena StrigÃ¥rd (HS): We see a…
As global leaders assemble at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, we take a look at how Big Pharma is addressing environmental governance and how the top firms perform against their peers. Another quarter down, and another bout of pharma firms describe their financial successes and woes. But a number of companies have described their efforts to look after the environment, perhaps spurred on by COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow, UK this week. UK pharma giant…
Sartorius says its focus on lean manufacturing and creating additional capacity has pushed its margins up, but increased headcount will have an impact going forward. For the first nine months of 2021, German life sciences firm Sartorius reported group sales revenue of €2.6 billion ($3 billion), an increase of 50.4% year-on-year. The firm highlighted strong demand for its bioprocessing services and consumables as a major factor in this growth, with the division contributing almost €2 billon to the top line.…
CureVac will shift its manufacturing setup to produce clinical material for second-generation mRNA vaccine candidates as it abandons CVnCoV.  Just one month ago, CureVac dropped two contract development manufacturing organization’s (CDMOs) after demand for mRNA COVID-19 candidate CVnCoV diminished but the firm remained confident future clinical trials would still go ahead.  Now, CureVac has decided to withdraw the first-generation vaccine candidate from the approval process with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in a bid to “refocus efforts on improved second-generation vaccine candidates we are developing in collaboration with GSK.†According to the firm, its second-generation candidates are based on an improved mRNA setup and includes flu…
The increased capabilities in Singapore will support both upstream and downstream processing and analytical development, the CDMO says. The size of the investment has not been disclosed, but Jeetendra Vaghjiani, senior director of Clinical Development for Mammalian Biologics, Lonza told this publication the expansion consists of a 1800 m2 lab built at the Singapore Science Park in Tuas along with the renovation of an existing 1500 m2 lab. “We are adding more capacity across all our technologies, supporting upstream and…
COVID-19 showed biopharma at its best and worst says a former regulator, who argues that the scrutiny which came with the pandemic highlighted some key industry challenges. The pandemic put biopharma in the spotlight according to Jeff Baker, former deputy director of the Office of Biotechnology Products in CDER, who told delegates at the BPI East hybrid conference last month the crisis highlighted industry’s strengths and weaknesses. “There will be a lot of books written about the COVID-19 crisis and…