Jaguar Gene Therapy creates spin-off to manage CMC capabilities
Jaguar Gene Therapy – which arrived in North Carolina in 2021 – is creating a new company to manage its chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) capabilities.
Advanced Medicine Partners will launch on Jan. 17 to provide process development, manufacturing, analytical development and testing for advanced therapy products. Jaguar said funding for the venture will be led by Deerfield Management Company. Additional investors include ARCH Venture Partners and Nolan Capital, among others.
The new business will continue to lead CMC efforts for Jaguar’s pipeline programs, as well as supporting Deerfield academic projects, private portfolio companies, and other biotech and pharmaceutical clients.
“Advanced Medicine Partners is a science-and mission-driven organization made up of one of the most experienced genetic medicines teams in the industry…,” said company CEO Andrew Knudten. “With so many biotechnology companies being slowed or halted due to manufacturing challenges including product quality and scalability, we have the experienced people and technology to deliver what’s acutely needed right now – therapeutic product with purity and potency levels that exceed expectations of partnering companies and regulators, and that will potentially bring positive benefit to patients.”
Jaguar said Advanced Medicine Partners benefits from a proprietary development platform and has established a reproducible adeno-associated virus (AAV) manufacturing process that is among the most productive in the industry. The company has developed a suite of platform analytical methods that can be licensed, and it offers assay development services as well.
While at Jaguar, the Advanced Medicine Partners team manufactured more than 350 non-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) batches and supplied more than 20 preclinical studies, according to the company.
Advanced Medicine Partners currently operates out of 33,000 square feet of lab, office and warehouse space in Cary and Durham and is building out a 174,000-square-foot GMP manufacturing facility in Durham.
About Jaguar Gene Therapy
Jaguar was created in 2019 and moved from Chicago to The Research Triangle Park a little more than two years later with plans to invest more than $125 million and create 200 jobs between 2024 and 2028. The company’s goal is to accelerate gene therapy for those living with severe genetic diseases.
AAVs are small viruses that can infect cells without causing any known harm, making them ideal vectors – or carriers – of genetic materials into cells. The gene therapy technology was developed by Research Triangle scientist and entrepreneur Jude Samulski, who holds the first U.S. patent for inserting non-AAV genes into AAV. He was recruited to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in 1993 with nearly $250,000 in grant funding provided by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
NCBiotech also added a $100,000 award to other state and local incentives to encourage Jaguar to relocate to the state.
The company’s pre-clinical pipeline includes treatments for severe genetic diseases that include Type 1 galactosemia, autism spectrum disorder and Phelan-McDermid syndrome, and Type 1 diabetes.