Originally Published in GEN Engineering and Biotechnology News
By Alex Philippidis– July 16, 20190
AveXis, a Novartis Company, will use Catalent-owned Paragon Gene Therapy’s new commercial manufacturing center near Baltimore-Washington International Airport as an additional manufacturing site for its spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) gene therapy Zolgensma®(onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi), Catalent Biologics said today.
Catalent and AveXis have signed a long-term strategic agreement whose value was not disclosed. AveXis will use dedicated manufacturing space within Paragon’s Harmans, MD, facility, a 151,000-square-foot former warehouse that Paragon converted into a contract developing and manufacturing site which opened in April.
“We are pleased to add additional manufacturing capacity and technical expertise through this collaboration as we rapidly scale up product production,” Andy Stober, Senior VP of Technical Operations for AveXis, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Catalent in continued service of the SMA community.”
Catalent said the additional capacity, along with access to its adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy development, manufacturing, and process characterization expertise, will enable AveXis to ensure a stable and consistent supply of Zolgensma as AveXis prepares to launch the gene therapy.
