Esco Aster (Singapore) and Nuvonis Technologies (Austria) will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the early development and manufacturing of viral vaccines prevalent in Asia.
Esco Aster's proprietary Tide Motion bioreactors will be partnered with Nuvonis’s state-of-the-art Vero cell lines and animal component-free cell culture media to develop high yielding manufacturing processes. Innovative downstream purification technology will be used for high product recovery and short processing times.
Both companies will also forge a commercial partnership to deliver domestic vaccine production capacity to support pandemic preparedness and emergency responsiveness.
The MoU leverages Nuvonis’ qualified GMP Cell Banks, and Esco Aster’s linearly-scalable bioreactors and cGMP-compliant facility to lower cost-of-goods and increase the capacity of vaccine manufacturing platforms. This will make vaccines more accessible and affordable to the Asian population. Refer to white paper.
“The signing of this MoU is a commitment to explore how both companies can work together to demonstrate collective capabilities capable of enabling a public-private partnership that can improve vaccination programmes,” Xiangliang Lin, Esco Aster's Chief Executive Officer.
“We are excited about business opportunities that this partnership will enable. In Esco Aster, we have a partner that has developed highly relevant technology in vaccine manufacturing and therefore strategically fits well to our goal providing optimal manufacturing processes for vaccines on a worldwide scale,” Manfred Reiter, Managing Director Nuvonis.
About Esco Group
Esco Group’s vision is to invent, discover, and commercialise enabling technologies to make human lives healthier and safer. Esco Group is a Singapore-based life sciences ecosystem builder comprising over 30 companies, 1000 employees, with proprietary products and services sold in 100 countries. Esco Group’s operating businesses are in life sciences equipment, medical devices, bioprocess tools and services. As of July 2018, Esco Group has invested RMB100 Million into a new 20,000m2 manufacturing and innovation centre based in Jiangsu, China.
Esco Ventures is the corporate venture investment arm of Esco Group and invests in life sciences start-ups globally. Esco Ventures X, the incubation arm of Esco Ventures, builds biotech start-ups based on in-house inventions and academic technologies.
Esco Aster is a contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) focusing on offering vaccine-, cell- and gene-therapy development and biomanufacturing services using its proprietary Tide Motion technology, bioprocessing and bioengineering equipment. For more information, visit www.escoaster.com.
Esco Aster Pte Ltd.
21 Changi South Street 1
Singapore 486777
T: +65 6542 0833
E: [email protected]
About Tide Motion Bioreactors
Tide motion pertains to the oscillation of culture medium into and out of the matrix vessel that intermittently exposes the cells to aeration and nutrition. The upward oscillation exposes the cells to nutrition, while the downward oscillation exposes the cells to aeration and at the same time washes away products and wastes. This gentle oscillation produces no air bubbles and causes very minimal shear stress, which are both detrimental to the cells. View a range of products at http://www.escoaster.com/tide-technology/.
About Nuvonis Technologies
Nuvonis Technologies GmbH is a biotechnology company based in Vienna, Austria. Based on a very experienced team, Nuvonis is providing to its clients innovative production cell banks such as state of the art, animal component-free and ready-to-use GMP Vero banks and avian cell banks. In addition, the company provides technical support for vaccine production processes and vaccine strain improvement, with a focus on influenza virus strain optimization and reverse genetics. Nuvonis has developed unique purification methods that allow capture of virus particles with a limited number of unit operations resulting in highly pure vaccine products.
For more information, visit www.nuvonis.com.
Nuvonis Technologies GmbH
Mariahilfer Straße 101/1/21
1060 Vienna, Austria
T: +43 670 2024606
E: [email protected]