ABL Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of ABL, Inc., a contract research and manufacturing organization, has acquired a manufacturing facility from Transgene SA, a Strasbourg, France-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in immunotherapies. Transgene's production asset, situated in Illkirch, near Strasbourg, is designed and equipped to manufacture clinical lots of biophamaceuticals and vaccines using viral vectors. Transgene, ABL, Inc. and ABL Europe are all three members of the Institut Mérieux, a French pharmaceutical organization. .

ABL Europe recently received authorization by French regulatory authorities (French Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament) to operate a pharmaceutical establishment, a mandatory step to begin operations at the site. Manufacturing and other services will be provided under European Union and US good manufacturing practices.

The acquisition provides ABL with a European bioproduction facility to allow it to serve the European contract manufacturing market. The company also has a facility in Rockville, Maryland. ABL’s contract manufacturing services include process and assay development, biologics cGMP manufacturing of bulk drug substance, cGMP aseptic fill- finish of drug product, and quality control analytics. ABL also maintains immunological and molecular laboratories to support preclinical and GCLP clinical sample processing and testing. ABL has sites in both US and Europe (Lyon, France) to support its immune-biological testing.

For Transgene, the sale of its production asset was the last step of the company's reorganization initiated in June 2015. Part of the reorganization plan was the outsourcing of the manufacturing of clinical lots and focusing on the company's core expertise, the immuno-engineering of viral vectors and clinical developments. In parallel to this transaction, Transgene and ABL Europe have signed a three-year agreement under which Transgene has secured the production of the necessary clinical lots for its clinical development plan.

Transgene is based in Strasbourg, France and has additional operations in Lyon, France well as satellite offices in China and the US.

Source: Transgene