Business of BioTechniques – June update

15 Jun 2020

Written by Zyme Communications

So far, the second quarter of 2020 has seen a number of specialist biotech and pharma collaborations and partnerships, license agreements, and advancements in scientific discovery and innovation. In particular, progress has been made in COVID-19 diagnostics, manufacturing and therapeutic drug discovery. Elsewhere has seen companies move forward with expansion and strong international growth in services and product development.

Industry Developments

Avacta forms COVID-19 antigen diagnostic collaboration with Adeptrix and exclusive distribution agreement with Medusa19

At the start of May, Avacta (Cambridge, UK) announced its second COVID-19 antigen test collaboration. The company is working with Adeptrix (MA, USA) to develop a high throughput test using Adeptrix’s proprietary bead-assisted mass spectrometry platform (BAMS™). This will utilize Avacta’s already generated Affimer® binders and will provide hospital laboratories with a significant expansion of available COVID-19 testing capacity. The test will allow a single technician to analyze hundreds of samples per day, supporting the very high global demand for COVID-19 diagnostics.

The Affimer reagents, which were shipped to both Cytiva and Adeptrix in early May, bind the SARS-COV-2 viral antigen, do not cross-react with SARS, MERS and other closely related coronaviruses, and have been shown to work in pairs, both binding to the spike protein at the same time. This allows tests to be developed that detect both the intact virus particle and the detached spike proteins that become separated from the virus particle during the development of the COVID-19 disease and may also be important in monitoring disease progression.

The company has also announced an exclusive distribution agreement with Medusa19 (Manchester, UK) for direct-to-consumer sales of a saliva-based rapid test for the COVID-19 antigen. Recognized as the main tool to enable mass population testing, a consumer test will enable almost everyone to be tested, at least once.

Several of the highly specific Affimers have also shown therapeutic potential for COVID-19 by blocking an interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the ACE2 receptor found on human cells, giving the Affimers potential as a neutralizing therapy to protect those exposed to the virus from becoming infected, as well as treatment to slow disease progression for patients already infected. Avacta is currently seeking a partner to develop this therapy as quickly as possible.

Rentschler Biopharma licenses Horizon Discovery’s CHOSOURCE platform to complement cell line development offering for difficult-to-express proteins

Rentschler Biopharma (MA, USA), a world-class contract development and manufacturing organization for biopharmaceuticals; and Horizon Discovery (Cambridge, UK), a global leader in the application of gene editing and gene modulation for cell line engineering, announced the signing of a commercial license agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Horizon’s CHOSOURCE™ platform will be used in combination with Rentschler Biopharma’s novel in-house process for cell line development for difficult-to-express proteins.

Horizon’s gene-edited Glutamine Synthetase knockout Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) K1 cGMP-compliant cell line will complement Rentschler Biopharma’s existing service offering, providing a royalty-free, state-of-the-art alternative for the production of highly complex proteins. This will support researchers from early drug development through commercial manufacturing, and empower organizations to drive efficiencies in biotherapeutic manufacturing.

In April, Horizon announced that its CHOSOURCE platform had also played a key role in generating a stable cell line for the development of an immunotherapy for autoimmune diseases. The CHO cells delivered high yields of monoclonal antibody for LAG-3 immunotherapy, enabling Immutep and Batavia Biosciences to reach an important milestone in the preclinical development of the compound.

Dotmatics receives ISO 9001:2015 certification for scientific informatics technology

dotmatics logo Dotmatics Ltd (Bishops Stortford, UK), a scientific informatics software and services company that is driving the automation of laboratory data workflows for scientific discovery and innovation research, announced this month that it has achieved certification to the internationally recognized standard ISO 9001:2015 for its quality management system. The independent assessment demonstrates Dotmatics’ commitment to service and quality, establishing and implementing systems that enable the company to provide products and services that meet exacting customer and regulatory requirements. The accreditation also supports the company’s commitment to achieving continuous improvement.

Base Genomics announces company launch and raises $11 million USD to commercialize epigenetic technology for early and sensitive detection of cancer from liquid biopsy

Epigenetics company Base Genomics (Oxford, UK) has launched with a team of leading scientists and clinicians to set a new gold standard in DNA methylation detection. The company has closed an oversubscribed seed funding round of $11 million USD (£9 million GBP) to progress development of its TAPS technology, initially focusing on developing a blood test for early-stage cancer and minimal residual disease. The funding round was led by Oxford Sciences Innovation and also included investors with industry expertise in genomics and oncology.

“Genomic technologies with the power, simplicity and broad applicability of TAPS come along very infrequently,” said Base Genomics CTO Vincent Smith. “It has the potential to have an impact on epigenetics similar to that which Illumina’s SBS chemistry had on next generation sequencing.”

Diamond Pharma Services acquires PharmaCentral to strengthen pharmacovigilance division

Diamond Pharma Services (Harlow, UK), a leading technical services and regulatory affairs consulting group, announced its pharmacovigilance division, Diamond PV Services, has acquired PharmaCentral, an innovative pharmacovigilance services and medical affairs business based in Dublin, Ireland. The acquisition will expand Diamond’s presence in Europe and enhance the senior-level expertise within its pharmacovigilance team.

AI VIVO seeks collaboration partners to progress top-ranked COVID-19 therapeutic candidates

AI VIVO, the Cambridge-based company combining systems pharmacology and artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery, recently announced it is seeking pharma and biotech collaboration partners to progress therapeutic candidates that have been identified by the Company as “top-ranked” for COVID-19. The announcement follows the finding that 41 of the candidate drugs from AI VIVO’s top-ranked list for COVID-19 are now in clinical trials for COVID-19 by multiple groups globally.

TTP plc collaborates with ODx to develop new technology to address antibiotic resistance

TTP plc (Malbourn, UK), a leading independent technology and product development company, has partnered with ODx, a company committed to developing a system for assessing urinary tract infections. The collaboration is focused on developing new technology to assess urinary tract infections at point of care, ensuring the most appropriate antibiotics are identified quickly. The system is on track for initial trials in 2020.

IONTAS announces a new collaboration to identify novel immunotherapy targets

IONTAS Limited (Cambridge, UK), a leader in the discovery and optimization of fully human antibodies, has entered into a collaboration agreement with Inotrem, a specialist in immunotherapy for acute and chronic inflammatory syndromes. As part of the agreement, IONTAS will apply its Mammalian Display technology to identify antibodies involved in the TREM-1 pathway. TREM-1 is an immunoreceptor expressed on innate immune cells, and a key therapeutic target for many acute or chronic inflammation syndromes, including sepsis and myocardial infarction.

Products and Services

British companies Mologic and BioSure partner on COVID-19 Antibody Self-Test

Mologic (Bedford, UK) announced in May that they have joined forces with BioSure, leading experts in self-testing to produce a COVID-19 antibody self-test.

By combining Mologic’s independently verified COVID-19 lateral flow test with BioSure’s market-leading design, the companies have created a self-test for COVID-19 that can be used without any training being required. The innovative design has been proven to be extremely easy to use, requires only a fraction of a drop of blood and gives the user their own result in just 10 minutes. The test will be ready for mass production at the beginning of June.

Horizon Discovery extends coverage of OncoSpan reference standards to FFPE and liquid biopsy

Horizon Discovery Group has announced it has added two new sample formats to its cell-based OncoSpan reference standards for use in the development and validation of workflows for cancer diagnostic assays. Horizon’s OncoSpan range now includes formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded and cell-free DNA formats for mimicking solid tumors and liquid biopsy samples, respectively, in addition to its well-established genomic DNA format.

Optibrium adopts cheminformatics toolkits from OpenEye Scientific

Optibrium™ (Cambridge, UK) and OpenEye Scientific (NM, USA), leading providers of software and services for drug discovery, announced that StarDrop™, Optibrium’s software for small molecule design, optimization and data analysis, is now powered by OpenEye Scientific’s cheminformatics toolkits.

These industry-leading cheminformatics libraries offer a robust and performance-orientated foundation that ensures StarDrop will further advance its position as a leading computational software suite and meet the demands posed by future drug discovery projects.

Bio-Rad launches Anti-Certolizumab Pegol Antibodies

Bio-Rad Laboratories (CA, USA), a global leader of life science research and clinical diagnostic products, has launched of a range of anti-certolizumab pegol inhibitory antibodies to support the development of assays for therapeutic drug monitoring of tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors.

People

Mert Sahin joins H.E.L Group as General Manager and Senior Vice President of North American Operations

Mert Sahin

H.E.L Group, a global developer and manufacturer of innovative laboratory tools for process optimization, safety and scale-up, has announced the appointment of Mert Sahin, Ph.D. as General Manager and Senior Vice President of H.E.L Inc., the Company’s North American subsidiary.

Author Details

Zyme Communications provides PR and marketing services for the life science sector to help companies raise their profile and generate interest from commercial leads, investors and partners. With an international network of life science trade media contacts and a strong technical understanding, Zyme is committed to providing real value from objective-led communications.