November 2017 Newsletter

Welcome to the November GreyRigge Associates newsletter that should bring you some of the happenings over the past few months in the global biopharmaceutical sector as well as how GreyRigge Associates have been involved in some of them.

We’ve seen a huge leaps forward in the development of a Chikungunya vaccine with the Austrian biotech, Themis Bioscience, leading the way with a little help from the UK’s Department of Health.  National funding, whether by BARDA, the EU’s 2020 Horizon or Innovate UK funding, or global consortiums such as CEPI, Gates foundation, etc., are all an important part of the funding ecosystem that exists for the development of medicines.  Biotechnology is a continually evolving technological platform that offers really novel solutions to some of the global healthcare challenges. These include applications related to disease prevention, mitigation and rapid emergency medical responses.  All of us, whether in a nascent biotech startup, or a large global multinational, should always be looking to tap into the various sources of soft funding as it can provide a huge boost to building momentum for products that otherwise might not be developed.

Below you’ll find a summary of recent blog posts from our website, including an instance of where substantial government funding is helping in the development of a biological product.  Please click on the links to the full articles if you wish to continue reading them.

Chikungunya vaccine UK government funding secured by Themis Bioscience
One year ago in September 2016 the UK’s government innovation agency Innovate UK provided £1 million to help accelerate Themis’ Zika candidate into the clinic.  Now, a year on they are providing another £3 million for clinical trials to help propel the firm’s Chikungunya vaccine forward..  Continue Reading

Bioprocess International Article on Ensuring and Controlling the Quality of Biologics
Recently I was fortunate to be asked by Bioprocess International to give an analyst’s perspective on how the biopharmaceutical industry provides assurance and control over the quality of its biologics.  This was captured in an article that was published in an special edition titled The State of the Industry as a celebration of BioProcess International’s 15th year of publication..  Continue Reading

Use of Design of Experiments (DOE) for Vaccine Formulation
Over the last couple of years, I was lucky enough for GreyRigge Associates working together with Paul Nelson to be involved in a project on the use of design of experiments (DOE) for vaccine formulation for a lyophilized live attenuated tetravalent viral vaccine candidate.  I was working with extremely talented teams led by David Volkin and Sangeeta Joshi at the Macromolecule and Vaccine Stabilization Centre at the University of Kansas and Jill Livengood, Steve Erb and Linda Strange at Takeda vaccines Inc., Cambridge, MA. Continue Reading

Finally, I hope you enjoyed a great summer and as always if there are any other topics that you wish to hear more about, feel free to get in touch using the contact details below.

Best Wishes

Lee Smith
Principal Consultant, GreyRigge Associates Ltd
+44 118 9791169
contactus@greyrigge.com