Oxford Biomedica announced two separate partnership agreements on the same day, one that sees Orchard Therapeutics utilising the company’s LentiStable technology and another unspecified company that will leverage its LentiVector platform.
The two latest deals arrive shortly after it had expanded an agreement with Juno Therapeutics for two new viral vector programmes, and after it had signed a three year agreement with AstraZeneca to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine. All of the four deals were agreed in July, representing a busy month for the viral vector specialist.
Orchard partnership
Oxford Biomedica and Orchard have collaborated together over a long period, after establishing a partnership in November 2016. The latest extension sees Orchard Therapeutic use the LentiStable technology platform to develop a cell line capable of stably expressing lentiviral vectors.
Orchard plans to use the platform to create high-performing candidate clones for its investigational hemopoietic stem cell gene therapy, OTL-203. The gene therapy is a potential treatment for mucopolysaccharidosis type I Hurler’s syndrome, which has received a rare pediatric disease designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Oxford Biomedica states that the LentiStable technology is able to ensure cost effective manufacturing, a spokesperson for the company provided more details to BioPharma-Reporter: “The company’s cutting-edge, automated technologies enable us to streamline production, minimize process risks and reduce costs.