Category: News

NorthX Biologics, a leading Nordic development and manufacturing organisation announces acquisition of a biologics manufacturing unit from Valneva

MATFORS, Sweden, July 03, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)

NorthX Biologics (‘NorthX’), a leading Nordic development and manufacturing organisation with a focus on advanced biologics, CGT (cell and gene therapy) and vaccines, announced today the successful acquisition of the Stockholm-based Clinical Trial Manufacturing unit from Valneva Sweden, significantly expanding capabilities.

The acquisition includes the transfer of a multi-purpose facility, situated in the Stockholm life science cluster, close to Karolinska University Hospital. In addition, 30 staff members who currently operate the facility will also join NorthX. The site and staff have a long history with extensive experience of serving both Valneva internally and also working with external customers on a contract development and manufacturing basis. With expertise in mammalian expression systems and viral vectors, the capabilities complement those of NorthX’s existing business of advanced microbial based manufacturing of proteins and plasmid DNA. The acquired unit excels in process development, scale up, GMP production, quality control analytics, and quality assurance/release and is capable of working with Biosafety Level (BSL) 2/2+ and BSL 3 organisms. With this expansion, NorthX enhances its capabilities and can offer comprehensive services to a wider range of clients globally.

Janet Hoogstraate, currently Managing Director of Valneva Sweden, will join the NorthX team. She commented, “I am very proud when looking back at what we have achieved within the unit over the past years and look forward with great enthusiasm to build on NorthX’s position as the go-to manufacturer of advanced biologics in Northern Europe.”

Helena Strigård, CEO of NorthX, said, “We are delighted to join forces with our new colleagues in Stockholm to bring new innovative treatments to tomorrow’s patients.”

Thomas Eldered, Chairman of NorthX, commented, “This strategic move marks a significant milestone in our growth journey and strengthens NorthX as Sweden’s Innovation Hub. We are now able to work with ATMPs and advanced biologics, including process development and manufacture for clinical trials and commercial requirements.”

A new DNA-based vaccine against covid-19 is being tested for the first time on healthy participants at Karolinska University Hospital. The vaccine has been developed at Karolinska Institutet and target multiple parts of the virus, making it less vulnerable to mutated strains and potentially effective against new variants.

“This vaccine makes the immune system’s reaction more similar to what it looks like in the event of a real infection compared to today’s vaccines. We hope that it will produce a broader immune response, which can be helpful for people who have difficulty forming antibodies due to, for example, being on dialysis or taking drugs that are immunosuppressive,” says Matti Sällberg, Professor in Biomedical Analysis at at Karolinska Institutet.

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NorthX Biologics is proud to have the opportunity to support and be a part of AdBIOPRO. “It is a great infrastructure for ground breaking research and development aimed at finding solutions to some of the manufacturing challenges that need a resolution in order to bring advanced therapies to the patients at an affordable cost,” says Ola Tuvesson CTO at NorthX Biologics and member of the AdBIOPRO Centre Board.

Link to the press release: https://www.kth.se/adbiopro/news/adbiopro-competence-centre-for-advanced-bioproduction-secures-112-mkr-funding-1.1252385

Now you can read the exciting article about the innovation factory on Dagens Industri.

The digital link can be found here!

We are proud to inform you that NorthX Biologics improved its score from bronze to silver in the International Sustainability Survey (EcoVadis) for the year 2022. We have also implemented more routines and policies at our company to continuously improve the way we operate.

EcoVadis provides holistic sustainability rating services of companies. The rating covers a broad range of non-financial management systems including environmental, labor & human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement impacts. NorthX has been rated on the material issues that are relevant to our company’s size, location, and industry.

It is important as a company to manage sustainability risks, and the Pharma industry is no exception. Our goal is to provide sustainable process development and manufacturing services at our company.

If we look closer at the environmental area, we have improved our preventive work such as decreasing our impact on the environment and the municipality’s treatment plant. We now know more about the characteristics of our wastewater and how to handle our hazardous waste which gives us a better chance to improve and become more sustainable.

In the ethics area, we also have improved our preventative work such as implementing policies on information security, ethics issues and corruption. It is important to us that we also have a sustainable production and use raw materials that have been ethically made.

It is also important for us to have good work health and equality. At NorthX we have good diversity, equity, and inclusion of all employees. It is important that our employees stay safe and healthy for a sustainable workplace. We do preventive workthrough risk assessment, information sharing, and education.

We thank all of our employees for the work they have done for this rating and look forward to continuing our improvements in these areas in order to progress in the survey.

Conference “Advanced Biologics in Matfors and Beyond” at NorthX Bio went to a big success!

During a two day conference, a number of key stakeholders from the Swedish and Danish ecosystem visited the Matfors site of NorthX Biologics. The highlight of the tour being the walk about in our GMP licenced facility for ATMP manufacturing as well as the brand new innovation area, delegates also valued the discussions as such. How important it is not least for the government to know we have such capacity on Swedish territory. Yet, from a business perspective of NorthX, the importance to reach beyond the Nordics to showcase how biotechs can use this capacity.  

As the conference was such a success, with a waiting list for those that we could not fit, we are already planning for a follow up! Stay tuned.

Read more on Globenewswire
In English 

On LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:6942356929465733120

Today we can announce that we are expanding within the production of cell therapy, i.a. via partnership with Alder Therapeutics and that we are expanding with a second manufacturing facility at Karolinska.

Read more via the links!

• Press release in English https://tinyurl.com/2p8f67rd
• Press release in Swedish https://tinyurl.com/4j3nx6cj

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6944894393241759744/

Extra good for NorthX if you like or share the LinkedIn post, thanks!