CDMO provides Facilities Option for Integration Capability

Clinical-stage biotech Coave Therapeutics focused on treatments for diseases of the eyes and central nervous system (CNS) is combining its expertise with that of contract development and manufacturing organisation ABL, a specialist in viruses for vaccine candidates, gene and cancer therapies, to co-develop manufacturing technologies for AAV-based gene therapy products.

Both companies will initially work together in ABL’s GMP facility in Lyon, France, with the second stage of the collaboration providing Coave with an option to secure its own process development capacity and laboratory space within ABL’s facility. This will enable the biotech to further develop and scale-up manufacturing technologies for AAV-based products, including its proprietary next-generation AAV-Ligand Conjugate vectors (ALIGATOR) platform.

“Our collaboration with ABL, a best-in-class and complementary partner for Coave, is a major step in our strategy towards the vertical integration of our R&D capacities, which will be crucial in enabling us to control the development and manufacture of our pipeline products in an end-to-end manner. The manufacturing processes developed through this partnership will be critical on the path to achieving our future clinical and commercial development milestones, in particular for our CNS programs addressing large patient populations,” said Rodolphe Clerval, CEO, Coave Therapeutics.

Patrick Mahieux, general manager, ABL Europe, said: “We are delighted to join forces with Coave, a fellow French company. This exclusive partnership aims to bring together our knowledge and expertise to co-develop a state-of-the-art manufacturing process for viral vectors used in cell and gene therapies. We are excited to welcome Coave’s team of expert scientists to our facilities in Lyon to jointly accelerate the development of an AAV manufacturing platform. We look forward to a long-term partnership enabling the development and manufacturing of innovative cell and gene therapy treatments in France.”

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