Bio-Sourcing and Afrigen Biologics, two biotech specialists, have signed a partnership agreement to develop Bio-Sourcing’s biotherapeutic platform BioMilk in South Africa.
This technology aims to improve access to biological therapies such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and insulin products in South Africa.
The partners will create a novel, co-owned entity in South Africa to host the operations.
Several public funding bodies are said to have expressed interest and the venture is open to additional investors.
Enhancing patient availability and accessibility
Currently, biotherapeutic medicines such as mAbs are fully imported into South Africa which results in pricing that renders them unavailable to the largest patient populations.
This technology aims to strengthen South Africa’s pharmaceutical sovereignty, as well as drastically reduce production costs — thus improving the affordability and accessibility of the essential medicines for the treatment of cancers and autoimmune diseases.
The CEO of Afrigen, Prof. Petro Terblanche, said: “With this pilot phase, we aim to demonstrate successful technology transfer to South Africa and develop a commercial scale-up plan for producing biotherapeutics at a significantly lower cost.”