Manufacturing roundup: Chinese CDMO nets $80M+ Series B; $11M expansion on the books for manufacturer in NC

25 Aug 2022
endpts.com
Gene TherapyCell TherapyAcquisitionCollaborate
A Chinese CDMO has managed to put together a sizable Series B. Porton Advanced Solutions has completed the financing round garnering over $80 million. The company will use the funds to continue its business expansion into different markets, with investment in manufacturing infrastructure and global commercial operations. The CDMO, which is focused solely on gene and cell therapy services, has established a CDMO platform providing a wide array of services covering plasmids, cell therapy, gene therapy, oncolytic virus, nucleic acid therapy and microbial vectors used for gene therapy. The company’s current operational footprint includes a 40,000-square-foot site, with another 160,000-square-foot facility coming online at the end of the year. “In the coming months, we will continue to improve and optimize our internal quality and program management systems, enhance our ability to operate in overseas and domestic markets, and continue to provide the best possible CDMO services to our customers with our open, innovative and reliable platforms, so that best medicine would reach the public sooner,” said Porton’s CEO Wang Yangzhou. The funding round was led by the China Merchants Groups’ healthcare PE fund Merchant Health, along with its sister fund China Merchants Capital, China Merchants Securities Investments. Fosun Health Capital, Gortune Investment and SDICTK, Porton Pharma Solutions, CS Capital, HM Capital, Ruilian Investment and Momentum Venture, also participated in the round. Manufacturing giant Lonza has expanded the range of particle engineering services offered at its Monteggio, Switzerland site. The company will introduce X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), a rapid analytical technique that provides additional information about the polymorph and solid-state properties of APIs.’ According to the company, micronization via jet milling is a well-established technique to control the particle size of APIs and enhance their processing, bioavailability, and dissolution rates. However, while micronization is an energetic process and yields very fine particles, it can also result in amorphous generation and/or polymorphic changes, which can compromise the quality and stability of the products. The addition of XRPD will add to Lonza’s analytical toolbox and allow for the generation of data across drug discovery, development and manufacturing. The XRPD instrument began operations in Q2 of this year. “The implementation of XRPD provides additional analytical information, highlighting differences in the solid state of materials before and after micronization, and determining whether additional processing is needed. The XRPD improves our ability to detect solid state changes induced by the micronization process early in development and allows the problem to be properly addressed before the process is defined,” said Salvatore Mercuri, the associate director for new product introduction and MSAT at Lonza Monteggio, in a statement. ABEC, a provider of engineered solutions and services for biotech manufacturing, announced on Wednesday that it will invest $11 million to expand its single-use disposable container (DC) manufacturing capacity for its CSR biomanufacturing. The project is in the city of Wilson, NC between Raleigh and Greenville, NC. The site includes a 50,000-square-foot facility on 13 acres, which will be outfitted with an ISO-7 cleanroom and other manufacturing equipment. The new facility will be ABEC’s third global DC manufacturing site and is expected to be fully operational by Q2 of next year. “We are pleased that the industry is recognizing the value of our CSR products and we are excited about our investment in Wilson,” said Scott Pickering, ABEC CEO in a statement. The company currently supplies DCs globally from ISO-7 cleanrooms in Fermoy, Ireland, and its HQ in Bethlehem, PA. ABEC also plans to create 251 jobs in Wilson County for engineers and manufacturing personnel. LTS Lohmann Therapie-Systeme AG has closed on the acquisition of St. Paul, MN-based CDMO Tapemark Inc. Tapemark, a CDMO specializing in transdermal drug delivery systems, oral thin films and unit dose semi-solid drug and iontophoresis products has now joined LTS, a pharmaceutical technology company that develops and manufactures drug delivery systems. The deal will see Tapemark’s St. Paul facility becoming a part of the worldwide operations network of LTS, along with LTS’ existing facilities in Andernach, Germany and West Caldwell, NJ. “This strategic acquisition demonstrates our commitment to continue to set the standard as the best CDMO in TTS and OTF and to strengthen our footprint in the US, the world’s most important pharma market. We will offer an even more complete portfolio of drug delivery expertise and expanded manufacturing capabilities to our customers and their patients, and we are excited to welcome Tapemark’s customers to LTS’ global network. The acquisition strengthens our R&D capabilities in North America, allowing us to bring even more innovation and development support to players developing innovative therapies and new drug delivery systems,” said LTS CEO Bas van Buijtenen in a statement. The financial terms of the deal, however, were not disclosed to Endpoints News. Austin, Tx-based DisperSol Technologies, LLC, has made some stark changes. The company has appointed Tim Scott as the president and CEO of the company as the company is changing its name to AustinPx Pharmaceutics and Manufacturing. According to the company, this move is meant to better reflect the company’s new direction as a CDMO. The company, which has collaborated with big names in the past such as Catalent , is looking to shift its direction and will now provide pharmaceutical chemistry services including analytical and formulation development and cGMP manufacturing at its site in Austin. Scott himself was the co-founder and president of Pharmatek Laboratories from 1999 until 2016 when he sold the company to Catalent. “Our goal is to build a client-centric organization that provides drug development and manufacturing services for pharma companies worldwide,” Scott said in a statement.
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