Under the partnership, Curigin will use Charles River's expertise in contract development and manufacturing organisation solutions for supporting its preclinical and clinical trials
Charles River and Curigin join forces to develop oncolytic RNAi gene therapy. (Credit: CDC on Unsplash)
Charles River Laboratories International has partnered with South Korean biotechnology company Curigin to produce oncolytic ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi) gene therapies including adenoviral vector.
Under the partnership, Curigin will use Charles River’s expertise in contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) solutions for supporting its preclinical and clinical trials.
Curigin, which is a gene therapy developer, develops anticancer gene therapy products using genetically engineered viruses and novel RNAi technology. These technologies quickly and accurately block important disease-specific genetic signal pathways to shut down genes causing growth of tumour.
Charles River said that gene therapies can be offered to patients who have not been treated with conventional cancer medications.
The South Korean biotechnology company’s lead candidate CA102 is a genetically engineered adenovirus for bladder cancer.
Based on preclinical evaluation data for CA102, Curigin anticipates filing an investigational new drug (IND) application to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this year.
Curigin president Jae-Gyun Jeong said: “Developing innovative therapeutics is our mission and we are steadily working towards that goal.
“We are excited to work with Charles River in the manufacturing phase as we continue to race on the path to drug development for oncology patients.”
Charles River is said to have the validated platform processes and standard operating procedures for cell culture, transfection, and downstream purification.
These cost-effective, high-yield techniques accelerate the time from process development to clinical manufacture while maintaining product quality, said Charles River.
In addition, Charles River provides end-to-end support and supply chain simplification for gene therapy developers.
Charles River biologics solutions corporate SVP Kerstin Dolph said: “This collaboration with Curigin will tap into our industry-leading gene therapy CDMO capabilities and we are thrilled that our expertise will help bring potentially curative therapies to patients.”
Recently, Charles River Laboratories partnered with non-profit organisation INADcure Foundation for producing plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).