Ascend Advanced Therapies, which has been on an expansion tear since debuting three years ago, inked a deal with EW Healthcare Partners that elevates the U.K.-based gene therapy manufacturing specialist’s presence in the United States.
Under the terms of the agreement, Advanced BioScience Laboratories (a portfolio company of EW Healthcare) will become part of Ascend. Advanced BioScience, which is located in Rockville, Maryland, is a biotherapy, oncolytic and viral vector CDMO. With the addition of the ABL Bio facility, Ascend grows its fill/finish capacity in the U.S.
Ascend plans to invest in the site's existing infrastructure, the company said in a Nov. 12 press release. Financial details of the partnership weren’t disclosed.
The Rockville production site boasts more than 3 decades of development and manufacturing experience and has additional virus modalities for adeno-associated virus (AAV) production.
“Not only are we expanding our GMP capacity, but this merger allows the team to offer customers an even more sophisticated gene-to-GMP experience,” Mike Stella, Ascend’s chief executive, said in a statement.
North London-based Ascend launched in 2021 with an emphasis on adeno-associated virus vectors, which are used to deliver genetic material into cells. Since then it has acquired the chemistry, manufacturing and controls team and site of Beacon Therapeutics in Alachua, Florida, plus an early-stage R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area and its optimization and process development plant in Munich.