Dive Brief:
- Chinese CDMO WuXi Biologics has inked an initial collaboration deal with Harbour BioMed to develop, manufacture and supply Harbour's leading heavy-chain antibody for clinical trials under investigational new drug applications in China and elsewhere.
- Harbour BioMed's discovery and development is based on its two patented transgenic mouse platforms, dubbed Harbour Mice, for human antibody therapeutic discovery.
- WuXi is in the midst of a major expansion of its contract manufacturing business, announcing plans for new facilities in Ireland and Massachusetts even as it builds out it capacity at home in China.
Dive Insight:
WuXi has kept its press shop busy, both with its breakneck expansion and its steady drip of new manufacturing deals. So far in 2018, the Chinese CDMO has disclosed new partnerships with Harbour, Bioasis, Adagene and Aravive.
For Harbour, it's taken a year to move its leading heavy-chain antibody to the IND-enabling stage, where WuXi will backstop development and manufacturing of the molecule.
Harbour has an operations and R&D site in Shanghai, China, an innovation center in Boston and an antibody innovation center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The biotech is building up a pipeline in immuno-oncology and inflammatory disease using its Harbour Mice transgenic antibody discovery platform.
Harbour will support pipeline development through collaboration agreements, like this one with WuXi Biologics.
WuXi Biologics has been expanding its reach recently, opening in China what it described at the time as the world's largest facility for the production of biologics using only single-use bioreactors.
It's not stopping there, though, and is looking to break its own record with a planned facility in Ireland and intends to build its first production facility in the U.S. in Worcester, Massachusetts.
WuXi says to date it has helped push "more than 20" complex molecules into the clinic, including bispecifics, antibody drug conjugates and fusion proteins.
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