Cell therapy is among those life-saving innovations on which the medical community has hung its hat for several years now. More and more companies are unleashing their versions of cell therapies, aimed to eliminating the disorders that still plague humankind.
In the U.S., the health-care sector is taking its lumps, drifting lower by 1.3%, while, north of the border, the sector is drooping 1.9%.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Northwest Biotherapeutics (OTC: NWBO), a biotechnology company developing DCVax® personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, today announced that the Company has acquired Flaskworks, a company that has developed a breakthrough system to close and automate the manufacturing of cell therapy products such as DCVax.
Flaskworks was previously owned by its technical founders and Corning Incorporated. The technical team from Flaskworks has joined NW Bio as part of the acquisition.
It is anticipated that the Flaskworks system will enable substantial scale-up of production volumes of DCVax products and substantial reduction of production costs.
Northwest shares neared the closing bell Tuesday up 2.6 cents, or 7.5%, to 37.6 cents, on volume topping 3.7 million shares.
Back up north of the line, and back to the COVID fight, where Toronto-based Arch Biopartners Inc. (TSX Venture:ARCH) announced that applications to the Turkish Ministry of Health and local Ethics Committee have been submitted to obtain permission to recruit COVID-19 patients in Turkey for the Phase II trial of its lead drug, LSALT peptide.
Arch is planning to expand the existing Phase II trial about to begin in the U.S. by adding hospital sites in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. These two sites will be working concurrently with up to three hospitals in the United States to enroll 60 patients into the trial. The Turkish sites will follow the same trial protocol and will be connected to the same patient database that will be used by the American sites during the trial. Patient data from Turkey will be admissible to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, similar to the U.S. patient data, in support of the Company’s Investigational New Drug Application.
Arch Biopartners shares gained a not-too-thrilling three cents, not long before the closing bell Tuesday, or 2.3%, to $1.33, on fewer than 15,000 shares.
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