Month: August 2021
PA representatives tour Discovery Labs and Center For Breakthrough Medicines KOP facility
The Discovery Labs and the Center For Breakthrough Medicines recently welcomed a delegation of Pennsylvania representatives for a tour of our King of Prussia facility in the heart of Cellicon Valley, to explore the region’s need for greater capacity for the development of cell and gene therapy . Among those who attended were Dennis Davin (Secretary of Community and Economic Development); Mary Jo Daley (representative Montgomery County’s 148th Legislative District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives); Tim Briggs (state representative for the 149th Legislative District); Stephen D’Ettorre (Deputy Secretary for Technology and Entrepreneurship); and Patty Mackavage. DL/CBM team members who hosted were Brian O’Neill, Audrey Greenberg, Joe Corcoran, Will Corridan, Matt Ercolino, and Tom Majernick.
Improving Stability for Gene Therapy Products
“We’ve had decades to work out conditions for storing of biologics and small molecules,” says Brian Tomkowicz, PhD, senior director, vector engineering & manufacturability at the Center for Breakthrough Medicines in King of Prussia, PA.
“However, as we move into cell and gene therapies, significant challenges remain. For cell therapies, storage and handling of both cells and viral vectors are quite diverse and present numerous issues for long-term cryopreservation, and to maintain viability and activity post-thaw. While we may approach a virus like AAV as nothing more than a complex protein biologic, we need to understand the impact of these factors on the virus.
Audrey Greenberg Joins Pharmaceutical Executive Podcast to Discuss Cellicon Valley Outlook
Audrey Greenberg, co-founder and executive managing director of the Center for Breakthrough Medicines and Discovery Labs, discusses how cell and gene therapy has turned Philadelphia into Cellicon Valley, and how her organization is playing a role in that growth even beyond the city’s boarders.
Biomanufacturing Outsourcing ‘Growing Wildly’ As Life Sciences Firms Ramp Up Production
““Current therapeutic platforms were developed in academic labs and present a challenge to scale and manufacture,” she said. “It’s critical the industry bring to market partnerships that offer scalable, proven and efficient platforms for scaling up production.”
CDMOs offer a benefit to startups, allowing them to funnel vital funding dollars toward science instead of developing in-house manufacturing capacity. That capacity not only requires physical space with expensive build-out and equipment requirements, but also means finding talent with supply chain, testing, analytics and manufacturing experience. Outsourcing these tasks also means scaling up quickly is easier.
“Catastrophic success is a common industry phrase,” said Audrey Greenberg, co-founder and chief business officer of the Center for Breakthrough Medicines. “All of a sudden, there’s a huge market need and having capacity is an extreme advantage.”
Greenberg believes the development of the Center for Breakthrough Medicines site in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, near the startups and spin-offs emerging in Philadelphia, showcases one vision for the future of life sciences real estate.”
Audrey Greenberg and Brian O’Neill speak out in support of the growing #freethefunds campaign
Audrey Greenberg, Co-founder, Executive Managing Director and Board Member of The Discovery Labs Center for Breakthrough Medicines shares her thoughts about the need for investment to increase Cellicon Valley as the global epicenter for the development of life saving cell & gene therapies.
Brian O’Neill, Executive Chairman of the Board, Discovery Labs, and Founder, Chairman and CEO of MLP Ventures speaks out in support of life sciences and cell & gene therapies here in the Philadelphia region and expresses the need for more capital investment.
Conversation with Audrey Greenberg of The Discovery Labs and The Center for Breakthrough Medicines
“This week on LabNotes, Joe Fetterman hosts Audrey Greenberg, Co-Founder and Executive Managing Director of The Discovery Labs and The Center for Breakthrough Medicines. Joe and Audrey discuss how The Discovery Labs is catering to the exponentially growing Philadelphia gene and cell drug development market. The campus, including the recent acquisition of the Philadelphia Inquirer Printing Plant, now offers 2.4 million square feet of life sciences real estate and is expandable to 6.4 million square feet.”
Putting the Patient at the Heart of Dosage Form Design
“In biologics and small molecules, the trend shifted towards patient centricity,” adds Tatiana Nanda, director and program leader, The Center for Breakthrough Medicines. “Historically, the sole focus for drug product development was effective treatment of the disease while now additional emphasis is put on patients experience and quality of life during treatment.”