Medical
Vernal Biosciences | January 03, 2024
<p> Vernal Biosciences, a leading manufacturing and services company specializing in mRNA and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulation, proudly announces the additions of Sven Lee, Chief Commercial Officer, and Richard P. Hamel, Chief Financial Officer to its leadership team. Both distinguished leaders will strengthen Vernal’s position as a premier mRNA and LNP Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) while using their deep experience to deliver Vernal’s integrated mRNA manufacturing solutions to a growing marketplace.</p> <p> Chief Commercial Officer - Sven Lee</p> <p> Sven will lead the Commercial team, including business development, marketing, technical sales, and alliance management. His team will help customers define their manufacturing needs and provide creative solutions that leverage Vernal’s innovative technologies and manufacturing operations. Sven has a 30-year track record achieving remarkable business growth across the biotech and pharma sectors. Prior to joining Vernal, Sven was a Board Member and the Chief Commercial Officer at BioCina, an Australian based CDMO. Prior to BioCina, Sven spent six years as the Chief Business Officer of Abzena, a fully integrated, global biologics and bioconjugate CDMO. Sven has also held prominent roles in sales, marketing, and strategic planning at other CDMOs and life sciences companies including Global VP of Business Development at Catalent Biologics, Sr. Director of Global Business Development & Sales at TerumoBCT, Crucell (now Janssen), and Biogen.</p> <p> As Chief Commercial Officer, Lee says, “I am thrilled to be a part of a dynamic team specializing in high purity mRNA and LNP solutions for client partners in the rapidly advancing field of biotechnology of vaccines and therapeutic development for clinical trials and commercial use.”</p> <p> Chief Financial Officer – Richard P. Hamel</p> <p> Richard will be responsible for Vernal’s finance strategy and will lead the finance organization, including planning, treasury, tax and reporting, Richard is an accomplished financial executive with over 25 years of experience managing finance teams, improving business performance, and developing systems, processes, and procedures to streamline operations for high growth life science companies. Most recently, Richard was CFO at ReciBioPharm where he played a key role in integrating and managing several business units within ReciBioPharm. Prior to joining ReciBioPharm, he was CFO at United BioSource in Blue Bell, PA helping carve out the business from Express Scripts and building a stand-alone finance organization. Prior to joining United BioSource, Richard spent over seven years at inVentiv Health/Syneos in various financial roles of increasing responsibility including finance, shared services and treasury. Earlier in his career, Richard held a range of finance positions at ThermoFisher, AB Volvo, Kodak, Diageo and EY.</p> <p> As CFO, Richard will support Vernal Biosciences in achieving its ambitious goals and driving long-term success. “I am excited to join the Vernal team and apply my experience to further bolster the company’s already strong mRNA and LNP portfolio and further expand its unique capabilities,” said Hamel.</p> <p> CEO and Founder of Vernal Biosciences, Christian Cobaugh says, “On behalf of all Vernal employees and our investors, I am excited to welcome Sven and Rich to Vernal’s talented leadership team. Their collective experience and success that they bring to Vernal and our clients complements our expansion, including the recent addition of our GMP facilities and operations. Sven has spent most of his career helping customers find creative solutions in clinical manufacturing and Rich has successfully built and integrated several businesses in the life sciences sector, from early stage to global scale. Their additions to our team will help Vernal democratize access to high purity mRNA and LNPs for all stages of research and development.”</p> <p> <strong>About Vernal Biosciences</strong></p> <p> Vernal Biosciences is a leading CDMO specializing in mRNA and LNP manufacturing. Vernal provides comprehensive high purity platform manufacturing solutions for mRNA-based medicines and vaccines, from research to clinical development. Our dedicated team of experts, our platform solutions, and GMP facility show our commitment to our partners, enabling them to focus on accelerating their programs to clinical development to improve patient lives.</p>
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Industrial Impact
MOMA Therapeutics | January 04, 2024
MOMA Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on identifying and targeting highly dynamic, difficult to drug targets in cancer and other diseases, is pleased to announce a strategic collaboration and licensing agreement with Roche. This partnership provides Roche with access to MOMA’s proprietary KnowledgeBase platform for the identification and prosecution of a certain number of novel drug targets involved in promoting cancer cell growth and survival.
MOMA’s KnowledgeBase comprises integrated structure-function capabilities, advanced lead-finding technologies and computation-enabled lead optimization. It was built upon the concept that functionally related targets lacking sequence homology still possess three dimensional structural motifs that can be exploited to produce highly impactful therapies. To date, MOMA has utilized this bespoke platform to accelerate drug discovery in the ATPase target class, a class with a high number of genetically validated targets for which industry efforts to identify therapeutically viable drugs have been hampered by the extent of dynamic protein motion.
“Given its deep expertise and global footprint in oncology, Roche represents an ideal collaborator with whom to further advance the application of MOMA’s platform in a way that impacts patients’ lives. The vision for this collaboration was crafted jointly with Roche to enable each party to bring its strengths in pursuit of this shared goal. It also contributes to the long-term sustainability of MOMA’s core focus as we advance our rich pipeline of precision oncology programs to the clinic,” said Asit Parikh, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of MOMA.
Through the collaboration, MOMA will receive $66 million as an upfront cash payment and is also eligible to receive discovery, development, and commercialization milestone payments potentially exceeding US$2 billion, as well as tiered royalties. MOMA will be primarily responsible for all activities for selected targets through to development candidate confirmation, whereas Roche will be responsible for IND-enabling activities and clinical development and commercialization. Additionally, if multiple collaboration assets reach pivotal clinical studies, MOMA will receive a right to co-fund late-stage development of one product in exchange for increased royalties in the US on this product.
“We are excited to join forces with MOMA, combining our leadership in oncology with MOMA’s deep expertise in drug discovery for difficult-to-drug and novel targets in oncology. The broader field of cancer dependencies is of high importance for Roche and we are looking forward to further deepening our knowledge and discovering novel targets involved in cancer cell growth and survival leveraging MOMA’s innovative platform,” said James Sabry, M.D., Ph.D., global head of pharma partnering, Roche.
“It is exciting to utilize our industry-leading knowledge in how to identify and drug highly dynamic proteins to deliver on a breadth of discovery programs in partnership with Roche,” added Peter Hammerman, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer and head of development at MOMA. “Along with bringing two MOMA-owned high-impact programs to the clinic next year, we are making exciting progress towards our goal of addressing key unmet needs for patients living with advanced cancer.”
About MOMA Therapeutics
MOMA Therapeutics is committed to discovering the next generation of precision medicines by targeting highly dynamic proteins that underlie human disease. Bringing together seminal scientific advancements in biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, chemistry, computation, and functional genomics, the company has established the KnowledgeBase platform to exploit a key vulnerability inherent to all dynamic proteins: their dependence on well-coordinated, stepwise changes in protein conformation. By focusing this platform on disease-causing targets, MOMA aims to develop high impact, precision medicines for patients with unmet medical needs. MOMA Therapeutics is a private company launched in 2020 with seasoned leadership, a highly specialized workforce with deep expertise in oncology discovery, world-class scientific founders, and financed by leading biotech investors.
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MedTech
Stevanato Group | January 25, 2024
Stevanato Group S.p.A. a leading global provider of drug containment and delivery solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and life sciences industries, unveiled today two new offerings for efficient small batch pharmaceutical manufacturing: the EZ-fill® Kit and the non-GMP laboratory fill and finish service at its Technology Excellence Centers (TEC).
In a context where reducing time-to-market is key, Stevanato Group’s new EZ-fill® Kit offers fast access to a customizable and versatile solution to pharma and biotech companies needing to efficiently fill small batches with high-quality injectable formulations during clinical trials or commercial phases.
The surge the industry has seen in biopharmaceuticals treating various diseases in several therapeutical areas may signal a significant growth potential for pharmaceutical companies. Injectables, comprising more than 60% of the over 21,000 drugs currently in development, of which 44% are biopharmaceuticals, require high-performance primary packaging and delivery technologies for proper storage and administration.
Stevanato Group’s EZ-fill® Kit builds on its existing ready-to-use platform of pre-sterilized containment solutions – vials, cartridges, and syringes – allowing customers to effectively screen different primary packaging in combination with drug products. The kit will be available as a modular box made up of glass ready-to-use drug containers and add-on components on request, shipped by courier. As a result, the platform can bring enhanced levels of quality and safety to patients across the entire drug life cycle and improve the rate at which new drugs enter the market. EZ-fill® Kit will be presented at Pharmapack and is expected to be available commercially beginning in the second quarter of 2024.
Additionally, to better support customers, Stevanato Group has introduced a non-GMP laboratory filling and finishing service at its Technology Excellence Centers (TEC) in Boston, USA, and Piombino Dese, Italy. This new service allows customers to assess and identify the possible effects of the fill-and-finish process on their product performance as early as the container selection stage, thus de-risking processes and enhancing development and commercialization strategy.
“In the race to bring new advanced biopharmaceutical products to market and to patients, Stevanato Group is tackling the challenge of supporting customers with flexible drug containment and filling solutions in a timely manner," says Fabio Bertacchini, Senior Director EZ-fill® Vials & Cartridges at Stevanato Group. "Stevanato Group remains focused on developing new offerings that can help raise pharmaceutical manufacturing standards. By leveraging the expertise provided by our global TEC Centers, we aim to support customers' innovation, helping them face tests and de-risking processes and making right-the-first-time choices throughout their drug development journey.”
About Stevanato Group
Founded in 1949, Stevanato Group is a leading global provider of drug containment, drug delivery and diagnostic solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life sciences industries. The Group delivers an integrated, end-to-end portfolio of products, processes and services that address customer needs across the entire drug life cycle at each of the development, clinical and commercial stages. Stevanato Group’s core capabilities in scientific research and development, its commitment to technical innovation and its engineering excellence are central to its ability to offer value added solutions to clients.
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