CELL AND GENE THERAPY, INDUSTRIAL IMPACT
The Center for Breakthrough Medicines | March 13, 2023
Nucleus Biologics and Stoic Bio have teamed up to form a supply agreement with the Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM), a contract development and manufacturing organization that aims to accelerate the development and manufacture of advanced therapies. Under the agreement, Nucleus Biologics will become CBM's selected supplier of cell culture media and other biological solutions, ensuring a consistent supply of this critical material with tighter quality control measures.
Nucleus Biologics' approach to cell culture media, which sees it as a critical raw material that can drive desired attributes of cells crucial to the success of cell and gene therapy research, is complementary to CBM's focus on transparency, technology, and end-to-end solutions. By working together, they hope to expedite cell and gene therapy breakthroughs.
In addition, CBM will be an early adopter of Stoic Bio's innovative family of point-of-use media makers, Krakatoa™, which allows scientists to manufacture their own media with 65% fewer CO2 emissions than conventional media. By demonstrating that developing and manufacturing lifesaving therapies doesn't have to come with a high environmental cost, CBM hopes to set an example for the industry.
With over 2,200 cell and gene therapies in development, collaborations like this one are needed to speed up the process of getting these therapies to the clinic and ultimately approved. The CBM, Stoic Bio and Nucleus Biologics collaboration aim to create a unique service offering that introduces a paradigm shift in development and manufacturing, showing how technology and sustainability can converge to make better therapies sustainably.
About The Center for Breakthrough Medicines
The Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM) is a CDMO focused on accelerating the development and manufacture of advanced therapies to save lives. It offers end-to-end solutions such as process development, manufacturing, and quality control for cell and gene therapies, gene editing, and immunotherapies. In addition, CBM collaborates with pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and healthcare providers to make advanced therapies more accessible while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. The company also prioritizes sustainability by implementing green initiatives and sustainable technology and strives to positively impact the communities it operates in.
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CELL AND GENE THERAPY, INDUSTRIAL IMPACT
Sana Biotechnology | January 30, 2023
Sana Biotechnology, Inc., a firm focused on producing and delivering engineered cells as medicines, recently announced that the FDA has approved the company's Investigational New Drug (IND) application to begin a first-in-human trial of SC291 in patients with different types of B-cell malignancies.
SC291 is an allogeneic CAR T cell therapy that targets CD19. It is developed by Sana using its hypoimmune platform. The hypoimmune platform's objective is to overcome the allogeneic cells' immunologic rejection, which, if valid for SC291, could lead to prolonged CAR T cell persistence and increased rates of durable complete responses in patients with B-cell lymphomas or leukemias.
The hypoimmune platform includes disruption of the major histocompatibility (MHC) class I and class II expression to conceal cells from the adaptive immune system, which consists of antibody and T cell responses and overexpression of CD47 to inhibit activation of the innate immune cell system, especially macrophages and natural killer (NK) cells. The company has provided evidence from numerous preclinical models demonstrating the potential of this platform to cloak cells from immune detection and the therapeutic potential of SC291 for patients with B-cell malignancies.
About Sana Biotechnology
Founded in 2018, Sana Biotechnology is a firm focused on utilizing engineered cells as medicines for patients. It is constructing differentiated capabilities across the spectrum of cell and gene therapy. The company is motivated by three goals as it seeks solutions for people with poor outcomes or diseases that are currently incurable. The first is the ability to repair and control the genes in any cell in the body. It is developing innovative delivery technologies in order to deliver any payload to any cell in a precise, predictable, and repeatable manner, paving the way for next-generation in vivo gene therapy. Next comes the ability to develop pluripotent stem cells ex vivo into immune-cloaked functional cells, to replace any missing or damaged cells in the body. Finally, it believes that it can also enable broader access to its therapies by focusing on scalable manufacturing solutions, the manufacturing costs, and aligning with key stakeholders.
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MEDTECH, INDUSTRIAL IMPACT
BioNTech and InstaDeep | January 12, 2023
BioNTech and InstaDeep Ltd. recently signed an agreement wherein the former is set to acquire InstaDeep, a worldwide leader in AI and ML technologies.
The acquisition involves a total upfront payment of about £362 million in cash, while BioNTech shares will be used to buy the remaining 100% of InstaDeep shares, excluding those currently held by BioNTech.
The acquisition strengthens BioNTech's aim to establish world-leading abilities in AI-driven drug discovery and develop vaccines as well as next-generation immunotherapies to treat diseases with significant unmet medical needs. In addition, the company will enhance its network of worldwide research collaborators and expand its presence in many talent hubs throughout the United States, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe due to the acquisition.
With the acquisition of InstaDeep, BioNTech's proven and new AI- and ML-based models will be added to all of its discovery platforms and linked to an automated lab infrastructure through InstaDeep's DeepChainTM platform.
MD, CEO and Co-Founder of BioNTech, Prof. Ugur Sahin, said, "Since the inception of BioNTech, we have focused on leveraging computational solutions to create personalized immunotherapies that can reach a wide patient population."
(Source: Globe Newswire)
Adding to this, CEO and Co-Founder of InstaDeep, Karim Beguir, stated, "AI is progressing exponentially and our mission at InstaDeep has always been to make sure it benefits everyone. We are very excited to join forces and become one team with BioNTech, with whom we share the same culture of deep tech innovation and focus on positive human impact."
(Source: Globe Newswire)
About BioNTech
BioNTech is a fully-integrated and worldwide leader in immunotherapy. It has been focusing on automating and digitizing processes and developing capacities for the specialized production of individual vaccinations and large-scale goods, such as the COVID-19 vaccine. As immunotherapy pioneers, the company believes that science and innovation can make a difference for humankind. Therefore, since the beginning, it has focused on harnessing the immune system's total capacity to combat cancer and infectious diseases.
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