Date: 2016-06-07
Type of information: Collaboration agreement
Compound: Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) vectors used in the delivery of gene therapy treatments
Company: Cobra Biologics (Sweden) Touchlight (UK)
Therapeutic area: Technology - Services
Type agreement: collaboration development
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Details: * On June 7, 2016, Cobra Biologics and Touchlight, a London based emerging biotech with a novel enzyme technology for large scale production of DNA, have announced that they are collaborating on a project to optimise the manufacture of Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) vectors used in the delivery of gene therapy treatments. The collaboration aims to evaluate a platform for the safe and rapid production of AAV vectors, using Touchlight’s next generation dbDNA™ constructs, in conjunction with Cobra’s CDMO capabilities. The collaborative project is being led by Cobra and is partially funded by Innovate UK who has awarded £320K as part of their ongoing support for regenerative medicine and cell therapy development. This collaboration will use a combination of Cobra and Touchlight’s strengths in order to evaluate a novel platform for the production of AAV vectors. Cobra will bring process development, GMP bioprocessing and quality assurance experience for plasmid DNA and viral vectors coupled with its significant operational knowledge of large scale manufacturing processes. Touchlight will supply novel dbDNA™ constructs made using their proprietary enzymatic manufacturing process technology for the production of the AAV vectors. Touchlight’s technology is capable of generating large quantities of DNA and has the major advantage of being suitable for use with larger DNA inserts and gene sequences that are unstable in plasmid based systems. The project is Cobra’s second to be awarded as part of Innovate UK 2015 funding for the development of regenerative medicines and cell therapies. In total £8 million has been invested into five collaborative R&D projects that address critical challenges faced by UK companies developing clinical treatments and commercial products in these areas.
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