Lonza, the world's leading contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), and Asimov, a company building an AI-native synthetic biology platform to advance therapeutic development, have announced a strategic collaboration to advance lentiviral vector (LVV) manufacturing for emerging in vivo applications.
The collaboration combines Asimov's LV Edge system cell line technologies with Lonza's expertise in process development, scale-up, analytics and GMP manufacturing. By connecting early design decisions with development and manufacturing considerations, the collaboration aims to help developers account for manufacturability earlier in development, creating a stronger foundation for scalable clinical and commercial production.
Most current methods of lentiviral vector production still depend on multi-plasmid transient transfection, which limits scalability and consistency. Stable production systems could enable scalable, reproducible and controlled lentiviral vector product profiles, supporting emerging applications including in vivo LVV programmes.
The collaboration supports stable, programme-specific production strategies designed to improve scalability and reproducibility, while giving developers earlier visibility of manufacturability considerations
For in vivo developers, the combined capabilities of Asimov and Lonza address the specific performance and consistency requirements of in vivo LVV applications. The collaboration supports stable, programme-specific production strategies designed to improve scalability and reproducibility, while giving developers earlier visibility of manufacturability considerations. The same approaches can also support ex vivo LVV programmes.
Daniel Palmacci, head of specialised modalities at Lonza, said: “The development of in vivo lentiviral therapies requires design and manufacturing strategy to be considered together from the earliest stages. By combining Asimov's design and cell line technologies with our process development and GMP manufacturing expertise, we can bring manufacturability considerations earlier into development and provide customers with a more connected path towards scalable clinical and commercial manufacturing.”
Alec Nielsen, co-founder and CEO of Asimov, said: “In vivo lentiviral therapies turn the vector from a manufacturing reagent into the drug itself. This raises the bar for titre, product quality and scale. By pairing LV Edge stable cell lines with Lonza's manufacturing expertise, developers can get a scalable path from sequence to clinic.”
As the collaboration progresses, Lonza and Asimov will continue to define a feasibility-first framework spanning transgene optimisation, cell line development, process development, advanced analytics, scale-up, GMP manufacturing and chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) readiness.
