Ark wins funding to progress lentiviral technology
Grants awarded by agencies in Finland
UK-based specialist drug developer Ark Therapeutics Group has been awarded up to €0.4m from the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES).
The funding will be used to further develop Ark’s proprietary lentiviral vector production technology using baculoviruses (Baculo-lentiviral) to achieve the scale and GMP quality required for clinical use.
Ark has also received €0.2m from Finnish governmental organisation Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY-centre) to progress validation work in its GMP3 manufacturing facility in Kuopio.
The support from TEKES and ELY-centre will enable this technology to be established as a production platform within Ark’s GMP manufacturing facility.
Professor Seppo Ylä-Herttuala, Ark’s consultant director of Molecular Medicine, said he looked forward to announcing further progress in this area in due course.