ABL, a pure play Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with specialized expertise in the development and manufacturing of solutions for biopharma, and RD-Biotech, a CRO/CDMO providing custom services in development and production of plasmid DNA, monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins, have signed a strategic partnership in Cell and Gene Therapy (C>) GMP manufacturing.
 
This collaboration brings together RD-Biotech’s plasmid DNA (pDNA) GMP manufacturing services with ABL’s viral vector GMP manufacturing to offer a new and flexible end-to-end service to C> developers.
 
As pDNA is vital in the production of these novel therapies, ABL and RD-Biotech aim to provide customers with a seamless process, from its supply to the delivery of vials destined for patients. This seamless process is designed to enable customers to accelerate the development of novel therapies and reach patients faster.
 
Under the agreement, customers will also have the option to use each partner as a single supplier, working with each independently.
 
“ABL’s partnership with RD-Biotech is a major step forward in enabling our company to roll out our ‘Gene to Cell’ strategy, aimed at offering all-in-one services to our customers whatever their needs are in Adeno Associated Virus-based (AAV) and lentivirus GMP manufacturing,” said Thierry Van Nieuwenhove, CEO of ABL. “ABL, in close collaboration with RD-Biotech, will be able to provide the complete service required by our customers for advancing their gene and cell therapy projects.”
 
This partnership consolidates the strengths of two French market leaders in the development and biomanufacturing of biologics. Their business model, that combines molecular biology, fermentation and mammalian cell culture, offers flexibility to adapt to customer needs.
 
“RD-Biotech is proud to partner with ABL, whose expertise in cell and gene therapy manufacturing will directly benefit our customers,” said Philippe Dulieu, CEO of RD-Biotech. “There is a clear synergy between the services provided by our companies, which includes pDNA and virus manufacturing, that will significantly improve project efficiency. We aim to provide seamless processes, from the supply of pDNA to the delivery of the vials.”
 
RD-Biotech is a CDMO involved in the manufacturing of pDNA as a raw material for new cell therapies as well as for messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies. pDNA can be used as a template for mRNA production in vaccines, including some for Covid-19. It is also used as a vector for encoding those viral sequences necessary for cell transfection, in order to obtain viral supernatant.
 
This collaboration will allow both companies to work together on innovations in the cell and gene therapy market.