Johnson Matthey and Immunomedics have collaborated to produce an ingredient in Immunomedics’ cancer treatment. Immunomedics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. It will use Johnson Matthey’s high potency GMP manufacturing capabilities to produce a cancer drug.
The drug at the root of the manufacturing partnership is an antibody-drug conjugate, currently under priority review with the FDA.
The drug requires a drug-linker. UK-based Johnson Matthey, a science and chemical production company, will be producing the drug-linker at its Massachusetts facility. This is a location convenient to the agreement as Immunomedics is headquartered in the US.
Johnson Matthey has taken on the scale-up function in this partnership, as it has in many collaborations previously, celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2017.
Nick Shackley, Vice President, Health of Johnson Matthey: said: “We are proud to build on our existing relationship with Immunomedics to enable the production of viable treatment options to improve cancer patients’ lives.”
The antibody-drug conjugate, called sacituzumab govitecan, is a drug developed for the treatment of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. If approved this would be the first therapy accepted for this patient group.