Gene Therapy – Coming of Age

Oxford Biomedica is a leading, fully integrated, cell and gene therapy group. They have built a sector leading lentiviral vector delivery system, LentiVector® platform, which is leveraged to develop in vivo and ex vivo products both in-house and with partners. They have also created a valuable proprietary portfolio of cell and gene therapy product candidates in the areas of oncology, ophthalmology, CNS disorders and liver diseases. They have a three-year master supply and development agreement with AstraZeneca for large-scale manufacturing of the adenoviral based COVID-19 vaccine. Oxford Biomedica is based across several locations in Oxfordshire, UK and employs more than 740 people.

In 2021, The University of Oxford and Oxford Biomedica launched the new Oxford Biomedica Innovation Fund (OXBIF) which ran alongside the Medical and Life Sciences Translational Fund (MLSTF) – an internal funding scheme managed by the Translational Research Office (MSD) which supports proof of concept projects at early stages of translation. Projects focusing on the development of Advanced Medicinal Therapy Products were encouraged to apply. Interest was shown particularly in platform technologies such as lentivirus vectors, AAV, and lipid nanoparticles.