Bio-Sourcing and Afrigen Biologics partner on groundbreaking biomanufacturing platform to improve access to biotherapeutics in South Africa
June 04 2024 - 5:00AM
Business Wire
Technology transfer will strengthen South Africa’s
pharmaceutical sovereignty and drastically reduce production costs,
thus improving affordability and accessibility of key medicines in
oncology and life-threatening autoimmune diseases
Bio-Sourcing, a Belgian biotech, today announces the signing of
a partnership agreement with Afrigen Biologics, a South African
biotech, to develop a pilot program in South Africa of a
groundbreaking biotherapeutic platform, BioMilk™.
Bio-Sourcing’s cutting-edge platform is poised to redefine the
landscape of healthcare solutions. BioMilk represents a significant
leap forward in the development of novel therapies, aiming to
address global unmet medical needs and radically improve access to
biotherapeutics, such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and insulin
products.
The partners intend to create a new joint entity in South Africa
to host the operations. Several public funding bodies have already
expressed interest and the venture is open to additional
investors.
Afrigen, which has previously pioneered the establishment of a
state-of-the-art mRNA vaccine technology platform in Cape Town, and
Bio-Sourcing, inventor of the technology underpinning BioMilk™,
believe that the platform will enable the end-to-end, including
drug substance, manufacturing of the latest biologic medicines in
South Africa.
Currently, biotherapeutic medicines such as mAbs are fully
imported in South Africa at exorbitant prices, resulting in them
being unavailable to the largest patient populations. This
innovative technology aims not only strengthen South Africa’s
pharmaceutical sovereignty, but would also drastically reduce
production costs, thus improving the affordability and
accessibility of the essential medicines in the fields of oncology
and life-threatening autoimmune diseases.
“Our collaboration with Afrigen, a well-known and established
player, represents an important step in the deployment of
Bio-Sourcing in healthcare. I am thrilled to bring the BioMilk
technology to Africa, where its benefits in terms of investment and
production costs and sustainability are more critical than anywhere
else. I look forward to the installation of our first bulk plant
and to providing South Africa and other African countries with
access to the medicines patients need,” said Bertrand Mérot, CEO of
Bio-Sourcing.
About Bio-Sourcing:
Bio-Sourcing is a biotechnology company that has developed a
unique, sustainable and profitable platform to produce a new
generation of biotherapeutics; in particular, monoclonal
antibodies. Its technology platform is based on the production of
biotherapeutics in goat milk using genome editing and nuclear
transfer technologies. www.bio-sourcing.com
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