California-based CHO Plus Inc., a biotechnology company, announced it has received a project agreement award of up to $10.4 million from the Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Preparedness Consortium, which is managed by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
The agreement is supported in whole or in part by federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. It will fund the development of high-productivity Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines for manufacturing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting filoviruses over a 30-month period.
According to the company, the engineered cell lines will be used to produce mAbs for therapeutic use against highly contagious and lethal filoviruses.
CHO Plus will collaborate with Avid Bioservices, a commercial biologics CDMO based in Tustin, California, to scale up the mAb production to meet future industrial manufacturing needs.
In March, Lotte Biologics announced an agreement with Asimov to integrate cell line development technology with GMP manufacturing capabilities. The partnership will incorporate Asimov’s CHO Edge platform, which uses synthetic biology and AI-driven analysis to optimize CHO cell lines for antibody and protein therapeutic production.