Abzena to manufacture therapeutic antibody for Faron
Clevegen is a novel therapeutic antibody being developed by Faron to reduce immune suppression in cancer
Abzena, a UK life sciences group providing services and technologies to enable development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, has agreed to manufacture Clevegen, a novel therapeutic antibody being developed by Finland-based firm Faron Pharmaceuticals.
Clevegen reduces immune suppression in cancer and may also have the potential to be used in other situations where there is an inadequate immune response, such as in chronic infections or during vaccination.
Clevegen was humanised by Cambridge, UK-based Abzena using its Composite Human Antibody technology. Under the agreement with Faron, Abzena will produce the Master Cell Bank and manufacture the antibody for clinical development under cGMP conditions.
This is the first product produced using Abzena’s humanisation technology that will be manufactured by Abzena following the firm's acquisition of PacificGMP in San Diego, US, in September 2015 to expand its manufacturing offering to Phase I and II clinical studies.
Faron had previously signed an agreement with Selexis to obtain cell clones with high Clevegen production. This collaboration has progressed as planned and the best selected clone will be used by Abzena to produce the Master Cell Bank for Faron.
Markku Jalkanen, CEO of Faron Pharmaceuticals, said: 'We are very happy to collaborate with Abzena for GMP production of Clevegen to complete our pre-clinical development, and subsequently enter the clinic. We believe that Clevegen can bring an exciting new immune check point target to cancer therapies as it drives conversion of immune suppressive type 2 macrophages to immune active type 1 macrophages.'
