Oxford BioMedica enters gene and cell therapy manufacturing project

Gene and cell therapy group, Oxford BioMedica (OXB), has agreed to enter into a collaboration project as lead partner that will focus on gene and cell therapy manufacturing and will be co-funded by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

The £2 million collaborative agreement between a consortium of partners, including the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, Stratophase and Synthace, will last for two years and is aimed at the advancement of OXB’s suspension LentiVector platform for clinical and commercial applications.

“Cell and gene therapies offer unprecedented promise for the cure, treatment or long-term management of disease and we are delighted that this consortium has been awarded funding from Innovate UK that will help to keep Oxford BioMedica, our partners and the UK, at the forefront of innovation in industrial viral vector manufacturing,” said John Dawson, chief executive officer of Oxford BioMedica.

“Collaborating on developing improved process analytic technologies with our partners will help drive productivity in viral vector manufacturing, accelerating the development of these transformative advanced therapies,” commented Keith Thompson, chief executive officer of Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. “We have the opportunity to both transform patients’ lives and grow an industry in the UK that we can be proud of.”

“We are looking forward to working as a member of such a strong partnership. We see our inclusion as validation of our Ranger adaptive control technology which is gaining significant traction in the biotech and cell and gene therapy sectors,” added Simon Saxby, chief executive officer of Stratophase. “Overall, we are delighted at the prospect of actively contributing to the accelerated development of novel, cost-effective advanced therapies.”

“Antha, our high-level language and operating system for biology, was developed to empower researchers to tackle highly complex biological problems. Cell and gene therapies are one of the most challenging and impactful applications of modern biotechnology, and we are excited to be working with our experienced partners to expand the capabilities of Antha to help in this domain,” stated Sean Ward, chief technical officer of Synthace.