Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, Nippon Kayaku Form mAb JV

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Co., Inc., a Tokyo-headquartered chemicals company, and Nippon Kayaku Co., Ltd., a Tokyo-headquartered company specializing in functional chemicals and pharmaceuticals, have established a new joint venture company, Cultivecs, for the production of monoclonal antibody (mAb) pharmaceuticals, including biosimilars. The company is aiming to start operation of a manufacturing facility within two years.

Like Mitsubishi Gas Chemical and Nippon Kayaku, the new company will be headquartered in Tokyo. The plant will be based in Niigata, Japan.

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical established fundamental technology of manufacturing mAbs, on the basis of long time experiences of cell cultivation and mAb technology transfer from GlycoNex Inc. (Taiwan). To expand business, MGC Pharma was started in 2014 to undertake manufacturing process development of mAbs. Mitsubishi Gas Chemical is exploring high-value products as represented by mAbs.

Nippon Kayaku started development of a biosimilar of infliximab, which was in-licensed from Celltrion (Korea). It was the first mAb biosimilar in Japan, and the company has been marketing it since November 2014. Subsequently, Nippon Kayaku has been developing a biosimilar of trastuzumab in Japan with Celltrion since 2015.

Source: Mitsubishi Gas Chemical

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