Horizon plays key role as UK biologics manufacturing receives £6.2m boost

Source: www.cabume.co.uk

Horizon Discovery is to receive up to £652,000 to expand its bioproduction work as part of a £6.2 million funding programme under the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative.

The Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) programme consists of an approximate total £11.3m of costs with approximately £6.2m in grant funding being delivered by the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Innovate UK and Birmingham City Council, to support the future needs of biologics manufacturing in the UK.

This initiative will support the future needs of biologics manufacturing and will help develop next-generation production systems so that the most efficacious and cost-effective therapies are made available to patients.

The Cambridge company is part of a consortium led by the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) on behalf of UCB Celltech and Lonza Biologics and will use to build a high throughput platform to accelerate the development of novel and improved Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines.

Specifically, Horizon will introduce specific genetic changes into these CHO cell lines, allowing better decisions to be made on potential performance improvements for biologic drug manufacturing.

Dr Paul Morrill, Horizon Discovery’s president for Products, said the award recognised the importance of strengthening the biomanufacturing supply chain so the next generation of biological medicines could be delivered.

He said: “Enhancing cell line function through gene editing is a critical path activity towards this outcome. This initiative, alongside the recent Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst funding, further reinforces Horizon’s reputation as a driver of innovation for biomanufacturing.”