Bora Pharmaceuticals acquires CDMO assets from Eden Biologics
To date, Bora has been focused on small molecule development and manufacturing.
Last December, Bora established a partnership with Taishin Healthcare Limited, with a goal to spend millions to expand its footprint in the CDMO sector; it outlined how it wanted to leverage the alliance to enter the macromolecular and cell and gene therapy manufacturing space, and by doing so, significantly strengthen its international competitiveness.
Bora Pharmaceuticals recently announced the establishment of Bora Biologics Co., Ltd., to focus on that space.
It has now acquired the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) facility from Eden Biologics, located in Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park, Taiwan.
"The facility has four 500L bioreactors, all of which have been certified by the EU Qualified Person (QP) and the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare. The facility has proven its comprehensive CDMO capabilities by having completed several collaborative projects commissioned by international partners," said Bora VP, Simon Chen.
Name change
Eden Biologics, located in Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park, Taiwan, was formerly known as JHL Biotech. The company instigated the name change in February 2021.
The two co-founders of JHL Biotech, Racho Jordanov and Rose Lin, were sentenced last year by the US Department of Justice for their roles in conspiring to commit trade secret theft and wire fraud
The investigation into the behavior of JHL Biotech has been on-going since 2018, wherein the Taiwanese biotech had been accused of illegally obtaining information from Genentech, through both former and existing employees at the latter company.
In March this year, Jordanov, previously CEO of JHL Biotech, and Lin, previously COO, were sentenced each to one year and one day in prison, followed by a supervised release of 36 months, after pleading guilty to the charges against them in August 2021.
On the charges that were filed against its former CEO and COO, Eden Biologics’ executive chairman, James Huang, stated: “Eden Biologics has been cooperating fully with the Department of Justice in its investigation for several years, and we are pleased that the Department of Justice formally agreed that the company will not face criminal prosecution in this matter.”
This article was updated on May 13 to show that Bora Pharmaceuticals had only purchased the CDMO assets of Eden Biologics and not the entire company.
