Wellington: the global hub of cancer therapy?
When the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research set up labs in Wellington to establish a therapy that engineers a patient’s own immune cells to kill their cancer, they never imagined that one day Wellington could become an international centre for this treatment. This has now become a possibility.
A new company, BioOra Limited, is working in partnership with the Malaghan Institute to automate the manufacture of their revolutionary immunotherapy currently in clinical trials, meaning that it can be scaled up to deliver this world-leading therapy at an affordable cost. The vision of BioOra is to manufacture a wide range of similar therapies in New Zealand for a number of international partners.
The therapy, called Chimeric Antigen Receptor T (CAR T) cell was first approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 for adults who have exhausted all other treatment possibilities for non-Hodgkins lymphoma and acute lymphocytic leukaemia. In CAR T-cell therapy, blood is drawn from the patient and immune cells, called ‘T cells’, are separated out. The cells are genetically modified in the lab by the introduction of DNA that instructs them to express a receptor. This receptor sits on the surface of the T cells and is designed to recognise the cancer cells in the patient’s body. When the CAR T-cells are infused back into the patient, they bind to and destroy the patient’s tumour.
Automating the CAR T-cell process is being made possible by funding from Callaghan Innovation’s Deep Tech Incubator Programme that supports deep tech start-ups such as BioOra with repayable grants, along with private investment backing. The seed investment for this new venture has come from Bridgewest Ventures, a company successful in its ability to incubate and launch major global innovation-led companies.
Mike Zablocki, General Manager of the Malaghan Institute says the partnership is a major milestone in the Institute’s long-term plan to help make CAR T-cell therapy a standard of cancer care in New Zealand.
“Bridgewest has extensive commercial pharmaceutical and biological manufacturing experience and the depth of capital to invest in the technology and infrastructure needed to scale up the CAR T-cell manufacturing processes that the Malaghan Institute has developed.”.
The current manual process for making CAR-T cells is labour-intensive and limited to one patient at a time and BioOra’s automated production will speed up the process and allow many patients to be treated at the same time, and more importantly reduce the overall cost of the therapy to New Zealand. In the US, the treatment is priced between NZ$500,000 to NZ$1,500,000 and New Zealanders who want access to this treatment need to pay for it themselves. BioOra is aiming to deliver this therapy at a significantly lower cost so life-saving treatment can be accessible to all New Zealanders through the public health system.
John Robson, General Manager New Zealand of Bridgewest Ventures and Director of BioOra says the automation of CAR T-cell therapy will fundamentally transform how this therapy is delivered.
“Global research is focused on extending CAR T-cell therapy to solid cancers, and automation will allow us to bring more innovative therapies to New Zealand. Our goal is to make New Zealand a leading provider of CAR T-cell treatments by attracting developers of best-in-class therapies to access cost-effective manufacturing at BioOra for CAR T-cell clinical trials or future standard of care therapies.”
David Downs, a survivor of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma after receiving CAR T-cell therapy in the US is elated that Bridgewest chose to bring BioOra to New Zealand and are looking to deliver it at a cost that is “phenomenally cheap” compared to other countries. After 12 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and a devastating diagnosis of just months to live, Downs was accepted into a CAR T-cell clinical trial in the US that ultimately saved his life. The stress and cost of obtaining the treatment abroad is something that now drives him to be a champion fundraiser for CAR T-cell development in New Zealand as an ambassador for the Malaghan Institute. He wants to make sure other cancer sufferers who seek the therapy do not go through the same experience. Downs says,
“This is fantastic. We have the Malaghan Institute undertaking clinical trials to make sure this therapy becomes available to Kiwis and we have BioOra that can manufacture at a reasonable cost. We are getting closer to making sure this vital therapy gets to those who desperately need it.’’
About BioOra Limited
BioOra Limited is a portfolio company of Bridgewest Ventures NZ LP, a deep tech incubator based in New Zealand. BioOra is a partnership between Bridgewest Ventures and the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research to automate the manufacturing of CAR T-cell immunotherapy and to build out the high-value manufacturing capability in New Zealand.
BioOra aims to scale-up to provide third party manufacturing attracting first-in-class therapies to New Zealand, charging significantly lower costs for CAR T-cell therapy compared to international prices to benefit New Zealanders and attract medical tourism.
To learn more visit www.bioora.com
Please refer to Callaghan Innovation’s 16 December 2019 Press Release “Increased support for deep tech startups” for additional details of the Technology Incubator programme.