Two in­vest­ment groups have come to­geth­er to pur­chase the CD­MO Al­ca­mi.

Glob­al Health­care Op­por­tu­ni­ties, oth­er­wise known as GHO Cap­i­tal, and The Vis­tra Group joined to ac­quire a con­trol­ling in­ter­est in the Al­ca­mi Cor­po­ra­tion from funds as­so­ci­at­ed with two oth­er in­vest­ment groups, Am­per­sand Cap­i­tal Part­ners and Madi­son Dear­born Part­ners. The fi­nan­cial de­tails of the deal were not dis­closed to End­points News.

Mike Mor­timer, the man­ag­ing part­ner and founder of GHO Cap­i­tal, said in an email to End­points, that the com­pa­ny has ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in the CD­MO field and has been watch­ing Al­ca­mi’s growth.

Mor­timer said in the email:

We’ve built up a very strong re­la­tion­ship with the Al­ca­mi man­age­ment team dur­ing this time and with our deep health­care mar­ket ex­per­tise and rep­u­ta­tion for sup­port­ing com­pa­nies to ex­pand their ca­pa­bil­i­ties and ge­o­graph­ic reach. Al­ca­mi rep­re­sents a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­quire a rapid­ly grow­ing CD­MO with com­ple­men­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ties in at­trac­tive mar­kets. GHO Cap­i­tal has the ex­per­tise and knowl­edge to help the Com­pa­ny fur­ther progress its com­pelling in­ter­na­tion­al growth plans.

The deal is ex­pect­ed to close at the end of the year, with GHO Cap­i­tal and The Vis­tria Group net­ting a 50/50 con­trol­ling in­ter­est in Al­ca­mi from funds af­fil­i­at­ed with MDP and Am­per­sand. Am­per­sand and Al­ca­mi plan to rein­vest eq­ui­ty as part of the ac­qui­si­tion.

Al­ca­mi has al­so pre­vi­ous­ly in­vest­ed over $140 mil­lion in “cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture” to add man­u­fac­tur­ing lines and lab spaces to sup­port its pro­grams in bi­o­log­ics and small mol­e­cules.

Wheel­er Bio kicks off con­struc­tion on a man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Down­town Ok­la­homa City

The CD­MO Wheel­er Bio has em­barked on a new con­struc­tion project in Ok­la­homa.

The project will be a 35,000-square-foot drug sub­stance man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty aimed at mak­ing ma­te­ri­als for clin­i­cal tri­als. The site will be in the Zig­gu­rat build­ing in down­town Ok­la­homa City and will be a part of the city’s biotech hub. The site will in­clude pro­duc­tion suites, a qual­i­ty con­trol lab, of­fices and a ware­hous­ing space.

Jesse Mc­Cool, the CEO of Wheel­er Bio, said in a state­ment about Wheel­er’s first GMP man­u­fac­tur­ing in Ok­la­homa City: “The cal­iber of col­lab­o­ra­tion so far among stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing Wheel­er, CRB, and Lin­go has been tru­ly im­pres­sive, re­sult­ing in a de­tailed de­sign that is a per­fect re­flec­tion of our vi­sion of an ag­ile, phase ap­pro­pri­ate, ‘smart fac­to­ry’.”

Il­lu­mi­na opens new so­lu­tions cen­ter in Dubai

While Dubai may be known as more of a tourist des­ti­na­tion, one com­pa­ny is try­ing to bring a broad­er biotech pres­ence to the city.

DNA se­quenc­ing com­pa­ny Il­lu­mi­na has launched a new so­lu­tions cen­ter in Dubai in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

The com­pa­ny es­tab­lished a 9,100-square-foot cen­ter with a lab­o­ra­to­ry with a wide range of se­quenc­ing and ar­ray tech­nolo­gies as well as en­gi­neers to of­fer ge­nomics ca­pa­bil­i­ties to the re­gion. The cen­ter will al­so pro­vide train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion to in­crease lo­cal ac­cess to ge­nomics tech­nol­o­gy and ap­pli­ca­tions

Su­san Tou­si, a chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer of Il­lu­mi­na, said in a state­ment:

Il­lu­mi­na opened its UAE-based So­lu­tions Cen­ter be­cause we see tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ty to deep­en our al­ready strong re­la­tion­ships with the coun­try’s health and tech­nol­o­gy min­istries, as well as with sci­ence and health care pro­fes­sion­als in the re­gion. With a ded­i­cat­ed team rep­re­sent­ing the en­tire Il­lu­mi­na ecosys­tem, we are pro­vid­ing more val­ue to our chan­nel part­ners and cus­tomers in the re­gion. We are grate­ful to the UAE gov­ern­ment for sup­port­ing this and we’re hon­ored to part­ner with the coun­try on its jour­ney to­wards the era of the genome.

Cell and gene ther­a­py CD­MO cuts the rib­bon on an­oth­er New Jer­sey man­u­fac­tur­ing site

Bio­Cen­triq, a New Jer­sey-based cell and gene man­u­fac­tur­er, has opened a new man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty at the Prince­ton Cor­po­rate Plaza in South Brunswick, NJ.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, the ad­di­tion of two clean rooms and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture will help open more pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty for Bio­Cen­triq as well as pro­vide more room at its oth­er site in Newark, NJ. The new site will al­so be able to sup­port au­tol­o­gous and al­lo­gene­ic cell ther­a­py man­u­fac­tur­ing projects.

The com­pa­ny is al­so plan­ning to ex­pand the site next year with more man­u­fac­tur­ing suites, sup­port­ing labs and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture.

Haro Har­toun­ian, CEO of Bio­Cen­triq, said in a state­ment that the ad­di­tion­al GMP man­u­fac­tur­ing is key to Bio­Cen­triq’s ex­pan­sion plan, adding “with this added ca­pac­i­ty, Bio­Cen­triq can take on more projects to help biotech com­pa­nies bring their prod­ucts from bench to mar­ket.”

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

A handful of CDMOs have made changes at the top over the past few weeks, including Genezen and Curia.

That also includes Australian CDMO BioCina, which announced last week that Mark Womack would be taking the helm. Womack previously served as chief business officer at AGC Biologics, CEO of Indian manufacturer Stelis Biopharma and most recently, CEO at CDMO KBI Biopharma and Selexis SA.

BioCina completed the takeover of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Adelaide in 2021 and is now prepping for wider growth. Endpoints News sat down with Womack to discuss his new role, plans for the future, and how to compete in the wider CDMO market. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.