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List forks out $125m+ for microbiome Indiana plant

List Therapeutics will increase manufacturing capacity for live biotherapeutics products (LBPs) with its $125+ million investment in Indiana, US. List Therapeutics, whose parent company is South Korean firm Genome & Company, will invest in the city of Fishers, Indiana to build a 110,000 square-foot outsourcing facility. According to the firm, the facility will be commissioned by the end of 2023 and will be located at the Fishers Life Science and Innovation Park. The plant expands List’s offering of end-to-end manufacturing…

HPNE to hire 150+ to support Rhode Island facility

by Millie Nelson

High Purity New England (HPNE) will hire more than 150 employees as part of a larger strategic plan for the firm. HPNE, a supplier of equipment and solutions for the biopharmaceutical sector, will begin to immediately hire 150+ employees in what the company is dubbing as a “substantial hiring push” as it prepares to open its facility in early December. The firm has invested more than $10 million at its plant in Smithfield, Rhode Island – just 50 minutes south…

Sartorius expands presence in North America with Michigan plant

by Millie Nelson

Sartorius plans to build a plant in Ann Arbour, Michigan expanding its business operations in North America. German life sciences firm Sartorius is expanding its presence in Michigan with plans to open an 130,000 square-foot facility in the Tech Loop at Ann Arbor Research Park by the end of 2023, creating a flag ship plant for the firm in North America. In total, the firm has purchased over 15 acres of land at an undisclosed price, providing it with sufficient…

Polyplus reagent aims to ease CGT manufacturing issues

by Millie Nelson

Polyplus has added a reagent to its existing product line developed specifically to enable large-scale viral vector manufacturing. The French-biotech said the reagent has been developed to complement its existing FectoVir-AAV reagent line. “FectoVIR-AAV is a transfection reagent, hence a key component of upstream manufacturing of viral vectors used for gene therapy,” a spokesperson for Polyplus told BioProcess Insider. “FectoVIR-AAV transports plasmid DNA across the cell membrane. In gene therapy viral vector manufacturing, three plasmids are transfected at the same time…

Autologous CAR T Cell Manufacturing Using a Semiautomatic, Closed, Modular Workflow

by BPI Contributor

Cell-based chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies have rapidly advanced in recent years, with a variety of targets in clinical research and several FDA approved products already on the market. There has been tremendous effort to make CAR T cells more effective, safe, and persistent when treating patients. On the manufacturing side, however, errors, lot-to-lot variation, and contamination can be associated with open processes and manual handling of CAR T cells. Cell isolation, gene editing, expansion, and cryopreservation are…

Mixed-Mode Chromatography: Optimizing Target Purity and Recovery with Buffer Additives

by BPI Contributor

This webcast features: Xuemei He, PhD, R&D Manager of Chromatography Media Chemistry, Bio-Rad Laboratories New biotherapeutic constructs continue to increase in biopharmaceutical development, extending treatment options to a broad range of diseases we face today. These biopharmaceuticals include recombinant proteins, monoclonal antibodies, antibody drug conjugates, bispecifics, viruses, and virus-like particles to mention a few. A simple, straightforward approach to the production of these biomolecules is required to meet the current demand for process efficiency and economics. Innovative chromatographic methods facilitate…

Athenex adds allogeneic assets in $70m Kuur Therapeutics deal

by Millie Nelson

Athenex will leverage its manufacturing capabilities and staff to support the development of Kuur’s NKT cell therapies. Biopharma firm dedicated to developing cancer treatments Athenex has acquired Kuur Therapeutics, a developer of engineered Natural Killer T (NKT) cell therapies used to treat haematological and solid malignancies. Through the acquisition Kurr could receive up to $185 million, through a $70 million upfront payment from Athenex and $115 million in development milestones. According to Athenex, it is not just financial benefit that…

Stem Cell Derived Exosome Production in Stirred-Tank Bioreactors

by BPI Contributor

This webcast features: Aurélie Tacheny, Project Manager and Application Specialist, and Jorge Escobar Senior Research Scientist, Applications Lab, Eppendorf Exosomes are a population of naturally occurring, mobile, membrane-limited, 30–100 nm in diameter, extracellular vesicles containing a large number of proteins, lipids, messenger, and micro-RNAs. It was shown that they play a role in the mediation of intercellular communication, the modulation of immune-regulatory processes, tumor metabolism, and regenerative as well as degenerative processes. In recent years, there has been increasing interest…

Perfusion confusion? Cytiva launches Xcellerex system to simplify process

by Dan Stanton

The Xcellerex Automated Perfusion System (APS) simplifies processes and reduces risk when intensifying upstream operations, Cytiva says. We speak with Andreas Castan, strategic technology partnerships leader, to find out why. Bioprocess Insider (BPI): How common is cell cultivation using perfusion? Andreas Castan (AC): There are a number of perfusion-based products on the market, especially unstable proteins like coagulation factors (e.g. Factor VIII), but also mAbs (e.g. Infliximab). Some of these have been around for 20 years or more. The use…

Thermo and Lyell team to boost T-cell fitness for CAR-T

by Gareth Macdonald

Thermo Fisher Scientific will develop manufacturing processes for cancer cell therapies in collaboration with Lyell Immunopharma. The deal – financial terms of which were not provided – will focus on improving the “fitness” of T cells from which cell therapies are produced according to the firms. A T-cells metabolic “fitness” describes the likelihood it can be turned into a cell therapy. Cell therapies need to be fit because of the high metabolic demands of tumor cells can negatively impact their…