Who’s making what? Contracts in brief
Cytovance Biologics will carry out process development and contract manufacturing of Selexys Pharmaceutical’s antibody-based product HPL1, its lead candidate for the treatment of Crohn’s disease. The contract will be carried out at Cytovance’s production facility in Oklahoma City over the next fifteen months.
HPL1 is an antibody targetted at P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1, a receptor found on certain types of endothelial and white blood cell which plays an important role in the recruitment of white blood cells into inflamed tissue.
Contract manufacturer Vivalis will develop a production process and manufacture amonoclonal antibody drug IPH 4101 for fellow French company Innate Pharma. IPH 4101 is a cytotoxic therapy currently in preclinical development for rare cutaneous lymphomas such as Sezary syndrome.
Vivalis will employ its proprietary EB66 cell line to set up an industrial process for the manufacturing of clinical batches of IPH 4101. The CMO’s chief executive, Franck Grimaud, said that the deal was Vivalis’ first in the field of therapeutic proteins. The EB66 cell line is derived from duck embryonic stem cells and to date has been used mainly in vaccine development and manufacturing.
Germany’s Richter-Helm BioLogics has been awarded a contract to develop and manufacture a recombinant protein for Swedish firm Athera Biotechnologies for preventing plaque rupture and athero-thrombosis in patients with acute coronary syndromes.
The drug candidate will involve making supplies of Althera’s proprietary protein Annexin A5 in Richter-Helm’s Escherichia coli-based expression system, initially for development and clinical testing and possibly also for future large volume commercial production. Richter-Helm will undertake strain and process development of the new process, aiming at a 1,000-litre production scale.
Cobra Biomanufacturing has signed an agreement with another UK firm, Scancell, to manufacture its SCIB1 DNA vaccine for late-stage melanoma. Scancell is planning to start clinical trials of its vaccine in the first quarter of 2010.
SCIB1 is engineered to express the TRP-2 and gp100 cytotoxic T-cell epitopes from tumour antigens, and in animal testing has prevented the spread of cancer from lungs as well as holding back localised tumour growth.
