Cell preservation reliability: Bellicum inks 10-year deal with Biolife
The clinical grade cell freeze media will be incorporated into the manufacturing process for several of Bellicum's products under terms of the ten-year deal, financial details of which were not divulged.
The Houston, Texas-headquartered biotech firm has a number of cell therapies in its pipeline, the most advanced being BPX-501, a T-cell therapy being evaluated initially in children with leukemias, lymphomas and genetic blood diseases undergoing T-depleted, haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).
Last week, BPX-501 in combination with the activator agent rimiducid was assigned orphan drug designation in the European Union.
BioLife’s CEO Mike Rice said the deal “underscores the value and utility of our biopreservation media products in the high growth cell therapy industry,” and added his firm expected to see “significantly increased demand” in its CryoStor and HypoThermosol products as more cell therapy products move through the development process.
BioLife has previously said its media is being used in over 215 preclinical validation projects and clinical trials of cell and tissue based biologics, and believes demand would increase meaningfully if some of these programmes reach the approval stage.
The Bothell, Washington-based services firm announces its Q2 2016 results later this week.
