Cobra Biologics links with CPI on regenerative medicines

UK-based contract development and manufacturing organization Cobra Biologics and the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), a UK-based technology innovation center, are collaborating on a project which will focus on the development of an industrial manufacturing platform for adeno-associated virus (AAV) production to support gene therapy and regenerative medicine.

The collaboration, which is being led by Cobra, will focus on AAV vectors which are safe and effective and are currently the delivery vehicle of choice for gene therapy treatments. However, the advancement of these therapies into clinical trials is currently hampered by the lack of robust scalability needed to manufacture AAV vectors.

The proposed collaboration between Cobra and CPI will develop in depth scientific and technical understanding to allow a scalable and flexible manufacturing process to be developed to produce, purify and characterise a range of AAV vectors. This will enable the acceleration of more potential products into clinical testing and ultimately new medicines. This in turn will increase the chances of treatments being developed for a whole range of currently intractable diseases.