Newark based iBio Inc. and Caliber Biotherapeutics LLC announced an agreement on using large-scale prodution of vaccines, antibodies and other technologies.
iBio’s patented iBioLaunch technology, developed over nine years at a cost of more than $100 million, causes common green plants to produce commercial quantities of targeted human proteins for use as pharmaceutical ingredients. The company has licensed technology developed with Fraunhofer, which has a biotechnology center at the Delaware Technology Park, Newark.
Texas-based Caliber owns and operates a commercial manufacturing facility in Bryan, Texas for plant-made biopharmaceutical products.
Human clinical trials of product candidates produced with iBio’s technology have been funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Caliber’s current facility capacity is over 300 kilograms of active pharmaceutical ingredient per year or about one billion doses of a typical vaccine product or 300,000 doses of a typical antibody product.
The Caliber facility together with the iBioLaunch technology also enables extraordinary surge capacity for vaccines and biotherapeutics against pandemic disease and bioterrorism, the joint release noted.
Under the terms of the agreement, iBio will receive license and milestone fees for development of product targets selected by Caliber. Caliber will be responsible for funding clinical development and commercialization products, and iBio will receive royalties on product sales and other revenues.
Stock in iBio is traded on the New York Stock Stock Exchange and the company has struggled to keep to keep above minimum listing standards as shares have stayed below $1. Shares of iBio traded at 70 cents on Tuesday, up 6 percent.
“This combination is a major advance for recombinant biopharmaceuticals,” said Robert B. Kay, CEO of iBio.
