More than two months after filing for Chapter 11, NanoString Technologies has found a buyer in Bruker, which will acquire substantially all the bankrupt company’s assets for approximately $392.6 million cash, plus assumption of liabilities, after winning a competitive auction. Bruker won the auction, held Tuesday, by increasing its earlier qualifying bid with a revised offer that was 78% above the $220 million offered by healthcare investment firm Patient Square Capital. “As a global leader in the life science analytical instrument industry, Bruker is uniquely positioned to ensure ongoing cust ..read more

BOSTON—Given that this year’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo included three tracks about artificial intelligence (AI)-based applications including a new one focused on Generative AI, it was clear that this year’s meeting would have a very strong AI focus. That was also evident from the first keynote talk given by Dan Stanzione, PhD, executive director of Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and associate vice president for research at the University of Texas at Austin.    In his talk titled, “Unleashing the power of advanced computing in bioinformatics,” Stanzione noted that wh ..read more

Cytiva introduced its Xcellerex magnetic mixer at the annual Interphex meeting in New York City this week. The single mixing system has been specifically designed to address challenges faced by customers engaged in large-scale monoclonal antibody, vaccine, and genomic medicine manufacturing processes, according to Amanda Halford, president, bioprocess, Cytiva. Sized in 2000 and 3000 L capacities, the mixer offers several configurations to cater to diverse mixing processes, she adds. “We’re tapping into our differentiated portfolio to solve a wide range of challenges for our customers,” continu ..read more

Patients in Brazil will soon have increased access to CAR-T therapies after U.S. non-profit Caring Cross partners with government-backed biomedical research institution Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) to establish manufacturing capacity. Maryland-based Caring Cross announced the collaboration in March, explaining the aim is to help develop production capacity for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell and stem cell gene therapies in Brazil. Under the deal, Caring Cross will provide Fiocruz with the technology, materials, and training needed to manufacture CAR-T cell therapies, including t ..read more

The SK pharmteco group is now offering a standardized viral vector and plasmid manufacturing process to a global audience. The global approach can help customers move to batches for clinical trials in 12 months, rather than 20 months for a standard approach, according to Adrien Auffret-Cariou, team lead process development projects at Yposkesi, a SK pharmteco company. Auffret-Cariou, who recently gave a talk at the Terrapinn conference on Advanced Therapies, says the new global approach offers both speed and savings. “When we make a proposal, it’s global, and we can be fast because we have ana ..read more

Maintaining pH within a particular range is crucial for cell survival. Although some organisms can survive and even prosper in a wider pH range than others, bioprocessing’s popular Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells grow the best at a pH of 7.0–7.2. But what’s the best way to monitor pH during upstream bioprocessing? Recently, Erica Fratz-Berilla, PhD, senior research scientist at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in Silver Spring, MD, and her colleagues tested electrochemical and optical sensors in upstream bioprocessing. “The traditional means of measuring pH in bioreactors is ..read more

The differences between batch processing and continuous manufacturing of biologics require a detailed understanding of material traceability and the effects of perturbations on material quality. Regulators advise resident time distribution (RTD) studies as a way to address those issues, but complex systems need models that mirror the properties of the processes’ product, consider constant flux processes, pressure, and inert tracers that are easy to detect. The models also should be nontoxic and inexpensive. Scientists, led by Alois Jungbauer, PhD, professor, Institute of Bioprocess Science and ..read more

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are the most used immunotherapies. They work by recognizing and blocking proteins that cancer cells use to hide from the immune system. However, cancer cells that don’t have these proteins use different ways to hide. Since patients with these cancers don’t respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors, researchers are seeking new ways to develop immunotherapies with different targets. Now, researchers from Osaka University have discovered that tetracycline antibiotics help the immune system find cancer cells in a way that is different from current immunotherapies. The re ..read more

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have developed a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that could be effective against just about any strain of a virus, and can be used safely even for babies or the immunocompromised. The new strategy would eliminate the need to create annual vaccines for viruses such as influenza, or SARS-CoV-2, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus. “What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist Rong Hai, PhD. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, b ..read more

Merck says it has launched the first all-in-one, validated genetic stability assay of its kind. The Aptegra CHO genetic stability assay leverages whole genome sequencing and bioinformatics to significantly accelerate biosafety testing for clients and therefore, their move into commercial production, according to Benjamin Hein, head of life science services, the life science business of Merck. “Driving innovation in biosafety testing is essential to bringing new therapies to patients faster,” said Hein. “CHO genetic stability testing has remained relatively unchanged for many years. The Aptegra ..read more