iBio, Inc., Newark, and California-based Novici Biotech LLC have agreed to broaden their commercial collaboration. Their efforts are now focused on antibodies and certain vaccine products, to include iBio’s proprietary IBIO-CFB03 product for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, systemic sclerosis and other fibrotic diseases that develop excess connective tissue.
The program will combine the strength of iBio’s iBioLaunch platform with Novici’s patented GRAMMR technology for rapid evolution of gene sequences to significantly increase expression yield of target proteins. IBioLaunch uses robotics and other technology to grow plants that are used in extracting proteins for vaccines.
IBIO-CFB03 and related proteins have been produced in plants on the iBioLaunch platform substantially more quickly and cost-effectively than has been possible with traditional methods, according to a release.
By combining the strengths of the iBioLaunch platform with Novici’s GRAMMR technology, iBio expects to drive production efficiency even
further as the fibrosis team initiates expanded animal testing and more tasks.
In April 2013, iBio announced the achievement of a technology transfer milestone when Novici was able to use the iBioLaunch system in a challenge study, without any involvement of iBio, to reliably replicate production of commercial yields of targeted biotherapeutics and vaccines. An additional benchmark was achieved in a study in May 2013 when Novici used iBioLaunch technology to produce a recombinant vaccine candidate for H7N9 influenza within 21 days of receiving initial antigen sequence information from iBio. Subsequently, the two companies have worked together on iBio-proprietary and third party antibody product candidates addressing both chronic therapy and acute infectious disease treatment, the release stated.
IBio has been in the news as its stock rose and fell on speculation on the use of its iBioLaunch platform in the fight against Ebola.
Shares rose to nearly $3.50 in the past couple of weeks, but fell to $1.11 at the close of trading on Tuesday.
