New acquisition to accelerate microbiome therapeutics manufacture

As part of newly acquired assets from live biotherapeutics products (LBP) manufacturer Federation Bio, Kanvas Biosciences now has two active microbiome-based clinical programmes.

“This acquisition allows us to manufacture and clinically investigate complex microbial consortia much faster than previously envisioned. Rather than devote years to building a manufacturing process from the ground up, we are thrilled to be able to positively impact patients’ lives much faster [by acquiring several key technologies],” stated Matthew Cheng, co-founder and CEO of Kanvas Biosciences.

New assets: microbiome-based therapeutic programmes

Kanvas Biosciences will, alongside its collaborator the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, advance an immuno-oncology programme through the new acquisition. Kanvas Biosciences highlighted that it will work to design and manufacture a synthetic microbiome-based therapy composed of faecal microbiota transplant (FMT) strains. The programme is aimed at widening the pool of cancer patients who can benefit from immunotherapy.

Dr Jennifer Wargo, Professor of Genomic Medicine and Surgical Oncology and Director of PRIME-TR at MD Anderson, remarked that she is optimistic this agreement will accelerate the development and manufacture of more microbiome-based therapies for patients.

Development of another clinical asset under the acquisition is a programme focusing on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Kanvas Biosciences stated that it is working to produce therapies for diseases associated with the microbiome, including IBD.

Based on promising data from early pre-clinical studies, in the coming months, Kanvas Biosciences declared that it will begin manufacturing cell banks for the lead immuno-oncology consorti.