iQur specialises in making medicines in the field of hepatology and has developed a vaccine technology that is based on the hepatitis B virus core protein, with preliminary research showing that it can carry antigens specific for both hepatitis A and B at the same time.

There is already a two-in-one hepatitis A and B vaccine on the market called Twinrix, although this product basically consists of two separate vaccines made via different processes and mixed into one product at the end, Mike Whelan, head of Scientific Operations at iQur told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.

"Ours differs because we use a unique, patented method that involves putting both hepatitis A and B antigens in the same recombinant protein," he said.

iQur believes that its experimental vaccine is also "highly immunogenic and should dramatically increase vaccine efficiency and reduce the current need for booster vaccinations".

"Whilst the market for such a vaccine is undoubtedly large, this will also serve as a proof of concept allowing new combination vaccines to be developed for a number of conditions, including infectious disease and cancers," the firm said.

Eden has been enlisted by iQur to develop a unique biomanufacturing process for the vaccine, called Hepatacure, which will achieve an optimal product quality that is within budget, as well as regulatory requirements.

Whelan said that this process development will probably take around 18 months, at which point a master cell bank will be made and the company will be able to proceed to preclinical testing. Clinical testing of the compound could be realised in a little over two years time.

Eden's facility in Speke, Liverpool was cleared in May last year by the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to produce investigational medicinal products for clinical trials, although Whelan said that at this stage it is unknown whether it will retain Eden for this purpose also, although it is likely.

The entire Hepatacure project is being conducted in conjunction with iQur's collaborators; Arecor, which is applying its proprietary protein stabilisation technology; and Mologic, which is developing novel yeast expression systems. The University of Leeds is also involved.

This consortium has a money pot of £1.1m from which to work, being partly funded by a £550,000 award from the Technology Strategy Board, which supports the research and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, as well as match funding provided from the aforementioned partners.

Whelan said that iQur was very keen to work with Eden because it is "one of the very few contract biomanufacturers in Europe that will help companies with product development."

"Most other manufacturers in this space will require that you have a fully developed process before you can talk to them," he said.

In 2006 Eden won a contract to operate the UK's new National Biomanufacturing Centre (NBC) - a £34.25m government-funded initiative to help biotechnology start-ups get their product ideas into clinical trials and also establish England's Northwest as one of the top biomanufacturing hubs in Europe.

The UK is now second only to the US in terms of its biopharmaceuticals development pipeline, however, the country's industry still lags a long way behind the US and the UK government has been making a concerted effort to close this gap.

The NBC was set up especially to fuel innovation by addressing an essential business need in Europe, to help small start up biotech firms gain access to the infrastructure and equipment that they are unable to afford, as well as tap in to invaluable industry experience.

Since the NBC's inception Eden has been busy inking new deals with a plethora of budding biotechs - in September, for example, Cancer Research UK selected Eden as the beneficiary of two new biomanufacturing contracts.

Eden was enlisted to provide consultancy, process development and manufacturing services for two of the cancer charity's leading gene therapy products: Ad-hTR-NTR for advanced intra-abdominal cancer and Ad.CP62 for head and neck cancer.

Shortly after it was announced that Danish firm Borean Pharma selected Eden to make preclinical quantities of its new anti-cancer drug candidate, MBP-DC-SIGN, which is one of Borean's drugs to be based on the Mannose-Binding protein (MBP) platform, which delivers a series of highly potent oncology therapeutics.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of August Eden inked two such deals in as many weeks. The first was with the University of Birmingham under which the company will develop and produce a novel therapeutic candidate for the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Shortly after this Eden inked another deal with the University of Manchester Intellectual Property (UMIP) - the university's managing IP agent for commercialisation - to provide a range of services for the development of a drug aimed at treating macular degeneration and cancer.

Following its new GMP status in May, Eden announced in March that it had been chosen by UK biotech firm ImmBio to provide development and manufacturing services for its leading influenza vaccine programme.

Eden also started to supply GMP clinical manufacturing services to UK biotech Onyvax for the latter's cell vaccine programme against ovarian cancer.

The Onyvax contract was the first at the NBC to benefit from a £2.7m Access Fund, supported by the UK Department of Trade and Industry and the European Regional Development Fund, which helps qualifying small-to medium-sized companies and academic groups to purchase development and clinical manufacturing services from the centre.

In addition, Eden was asked to extend a project with Silence Therapeutics (formerly SR Pharma) that involves delivering to the UK biotech a whole-cell microbial immunotherapeutic for the treatment of asthma, cancer and tuberculosis.