Aptamer Group, Bio-Works Technologies Collaborate on Affinity Resin for Gene Therapy Manufacturing

Aptamer Group, a developer of custom affinity tools using a proprietary Optimer platform, and Bio-Works Technologies, a developer and manufacturer of agarose-based purification technologies, are partnering up to develop a new affinity resin for improved purification and scale-up of gene therapy vectors. The partnership was announced in an Aug. 25, 2021 press release.

As per the terms of the agreement, Aptamer Group will use its Optimer platform to develop a ligand that is capable of the binding and eluting of a viral vector. Then, Bio-Works Technologies will couple the Optimer ligand to its patented WorkBeads agarose beads to develop a derivatized resin.

“We are really excited to be partnering with Bio-Works Technologies AB to enable improved biomanufacturing processes in this exciting field of gene therapy,” said Arron Tolley, CEO of Aptamer Group, in the press release. “We will be working closely with Bio-Works on the development and assessment of our Optimer ligands on their WorkBeads with the aim to provide an effective solution for gene therapy bioprocessing that can support this industry to scale through more efficient, cost-effective processes.”

“There is a clear need in the gene therapy market for affinity resins based on a technology other than camelid-antibodies. The current offerings for the affinity purification of viral vectors offer low binding capacity and are not cleanable using standard clean-in-place (CIP) protocols. As viral vector production scales up and matures, more modern solutions are required,” added Jonathan Royce, CEO at Bio-Works, in the press release. We believe that Aptamer Group’s Optimer platform can provide significant improvements in downstream purification of viral vectors. If successful, we also believe that we can collaborate on other affinity targets, since the Optimer technology is a scalable platform, which can be tailored to individual targets.”

Source: Aptamer Group