French companies ABL and RD-Biotech have signed a strategic partnership to cover cell and gene therapy (C>) GMP manufacturing.
ABL, is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) that specializes in the development and manufacturing of solutions for biopharma, including viruses for gene therapies, oncolytic viruses and vaccine candidates.
RD-Biotech is a CRO (contract research organization)/CDMO providing custom services in development and production of plasmid DNA, monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins.
This collaboration brings together RD-Biotech’s plasmid DNA (pDNA) GMP manufacturing services with ABL’s viral vector GMP manufacturing. As pDNA is vital in the production of novel therapies, ABL and RD-Biotech said they aim to provide customers with a seamless process from supply to the delivery of vials destined for patients. This is designed to enable customers to accelerate the development of novel therapies and reach patients faster.
Under the agreement, customers will also have the option to use each partner as a single supplier, working with each independently.
“ABL’s partnership with RD-Biotech is a major step forward in enabling our company to roll out our ‘Gene to Cell’ strategy, aimed at offering all-in-one services to our customers whatever their needs are in adeno associated virus-based (AAV) and lentivirus GMP manufacturing,” said Thierry Van Nieuwenhove, CEO of ABL.
Project efficiency
Philippe Dulieu, CEO of RD-Biotech, said: “There is a clear synergy between the services provided by our companies, which includes pDNA and virus manufacturing, that will significantly improve project efficiency. We aim to provide seamless processes, from the supply of pDNA to the delivery of the vials.”
RD-Biotech is a CDMO involved in the manufacturing of pDNA as a raw material for new cell therapies as well as for messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies. pDNA can be used as a template for mRNA production in vaccines, including some for Covid-19. It is also used as a vector for encoding those viral sequences necessary for cell transfection, in order to obtain viral supernatant.
This collaboration will allow both companies to work together on innovations in the cell and gene therapy market. In 2023, RD-Biotech will open a new facility dedicated to GMP plasmid DNA manufacturing. ABL is developing an in-house AAV platform and will open a new facility to bring viral based gene therapies to commercial scale and strengthen its QC testing department.
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