Univercells has entered the synthetic biology space through the acquisition of French DNA synthesis firm SynHelix. The deal, financials of which have not been disclosed, sees Belgian bioprocess firm Univercells add technology aimed at simplifying biotherapeutic development through a scalable and automated DNA synthesis platform. SynHelix’s technology is based on the GMP production of long DNA fragments in large quantities and has been touted as an alternative to DNA amplification on bacteria in the synthetic biology, gene therapy, and diagnostics…

In Pfizer and BioNTech’s third mRNA collaboration, both firms aim to develop an improved vaccine for shingles using their respective technologies. BioNTech and Pfizer first partnered on infectious diseases in 2018, teaming up to develop a messenger RNA (mRNA) based influenza vaccine. However, it was their second collaboration BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) that saw success, becoming the first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to receive emergency use approval in December 2020. Now, both firms have teamed up again to produce a vaccine for shingles (herpes…

Sanofi has entered into a $1 billion agreement to acquire immuno-oncology firm Amunix Pharmaceuticals. Sanofi said the decision to buy Amunix for an upfront payment of approximately $1 billion and up to $225 million upon achieving specific milestones, supports its plan to increase its contributions to medicines for oncology patients. The French pharma giant will gain Amunix’ propriety technology. This includes its XTEN masking technology platform, Pro-XTEN to identify and develop transformative T-cell engagers (TCE) and cytokine therapies for individuals…

Oxford Biomedica has agreed to a three-year extension of its lentiviral vector agreement for several of Novartis’ CAR-T products. Oxford Biomedica originally licensed its LentiVector platform to Swiss drugmaker Novartis in October 2014 and later both parties inked a five year vector supply extension in December 2019. Under the terms of the latest deal, both firms have extended the commercial supply agreement until the end of 2028 and Oxford Biomedica has regained the rights to its LentiVector platform and has…

Bora Pharmaceuticals has partnered with Taishin Healthcare Limited, where both parties will jointly invest $108 million to strengthen CDMO offering. Bora says it will expand its footprint in the contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) space by deploying private equity funds and its own resources. In addition to the partnership, Bora looks to move into the macromolecular and cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing sector, and by making this step, the firm claims it will strengthen its global competitiveness and drive…

Doer Biologics has signed a licensing agreement with Lonza to use its XS Pichia Expression System to produce multi-specific biotherapeutics. Under the terms of the deal, Chinese clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm Doer will have access to Lonza’s XS technologies services for production of its proprietary MultipleBody and SMART-VHHBody platform technology. According to contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Lonza, its XS Pichia Expression System can provide “scalable, robust, and reliable expression processes,” which will support Doer to develop Volatile Halogenated Hydrocarbons (VHH)-based…