Batavia And Candel Collaborate To Develop Therapeutics Against Glioma Brain Tumors

Today, Batavia Biosciences, a leading Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization, announces a new partnership with Candel Therapeutics, Inc. a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing multimodal biological immunotherapies to help patients fight cancer. The collaboration aims to accelerate the development and production of CAN-3110, an oncolytic viral immunotherapy for glioma brain tumors, based on a replication attenuated Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV).

Batavia Biosciences will use its HIP-Vax technology to develop a highly intensified, scalable and robust manufacturing process for Candel Therapeutics. This work will enable the production of CAN-3110 for toxicity studies and establish a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)-compatible process for the upcoming clinical trials.

“We are very pleased that Candel Therapeutics decided to contract Batavia Biosciences based on our proven track record with developing highly intensified processes resulting in low cost of goods. We are honored to collaborate with Candel Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company with extensive scientific expertise in working to develop solutions for patients with brain tumors”, says Peter Abbink, PhD, Managing Director at Batavia Biosciences, Inc., located in Woburn, MA.

CAN-3110 recently received FDA Fast-Track Designation to speed up the development for this promising immunotherapy candidate to improve overall survival in patients with recurrent high-grade glioma (HGG). In October 2023, Candel Therapeutics and academic collaborators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital published results from the ongoing phase 1b clinical trial in Nature¹. Recurrent HGG is one of the most aggressive malignancies for which there is currently no cure available, representing a significant and urgent unmet medical need. This collaboration aims to advance and accelerate the development of treatments for this devastating disease.

“Candel is excited to be partnering with Batavia, an organization we consider to be best in class with respect to HSV bioprocessing as well as our chosen manufacturing platform. We’re confident this relationship will ensure CAN-3110 is produced in a manner that ensures safe and effective medicine is available to every patient in need of this potentially life-changing therapy” says David Maheu, Vice President, Viral Vector Process & Analytical Development at Candel Therapeutics.

¹Reference: Ling Al et al. Nature 2023;623:157-166