Ascend Advanced Therapies Expands US Footprint in New Partnership

Ascend Advanced Therapies announced on Nov. 12, 2024 that it is partnering with EW Healthcare Partners to expand capabilities and invest in infrastructure in the United States. As part of the agreement, EW Healthcare’s Advanced BioScience Laboratories (ABL), a biotherapy, oncolytic and viral vector contract development, and manufacturing organization (CDMO) located in Rockville, Md., will become part of Ascend. EW Healthcare will also make capital investment in Ascend.

ABL’s Rockville facility and team will provide development and manufacturing experience, virus modalities, and good manufacturing practice (GMP) capacity for adeno-associated virus (AAV) production. Ascend’s fill/finish capacity in the US will also be expanded.

“We founded Ascend with a vision to quilt together the best operators and technologies within the advanced manufacturing field. The complementary services at ABL and Ascend will further strengthen our service offering to customers,” Fred Cohen, chairman of Ascend and Founding investor at Monograph Capital, said in the press release (1). “We look forward to working with our new colleagues at the Rockville facility and our partners at EW.”

“We have known Ascend and followed its progress in creating effective and high-quality gene therapies, and have been impressed with how the management team, which we also backed at Cognate BioServices, has expanded the business,” said Evis Hursever, PhD, managing director of EW Healthcare Partners. “We are excited about merging ABL with Ascend to create a scalable CDMO that will serve as a global platform for the manufacturing of advanced therapies. We have considerable experience and expertise in this space and the combined company’s strategic plans are very well aligned with our long-term vision. We look forward to working with the Ascend and ABL teams to further growth.”

This isn’t the first investment Ascend has made in 2024. In April, the company acquired Beacon Therapeutics GMP facility in Alachua, Fl. to obtain Beacon’s chemistry, manufacturing, and controls team; process and analytical development capabilities; and three ocular gene therapy products utilizing AAV to deliver gene constructs that address retinal disorders.

“Ascend was founded with a unique science and technology-driven strategy. As we continue building the most flexible [AAV] platform across serotypes on the market, we also understand the critical value of our experienced employees,” Mike Stella, CEO at Ascend, said in a press release (2). “This acquisition allows us to now support customers from research through to commercialization and adds to one of the most experienced gene therapy teams in the market. Every day we are working together to grow the company with a long-term mindset of quality first to appropriately balance quality and yield for the life of each product.”

“We are excited to enter this strategic arrangement with Ascend to advance our sight saving therapies toward approval. This alignment is critical to securing GMP drug product supply for our late-stage clinical asset AGTC-501 for the treatment of X-[l]inked [r]etinitis [p]igmentosa,” David Fellows, CEO at Beacon Therapeutics, said in the release. “The Ascend team brings significant experience in gene therapy manufacturing and a strong commitment to building capabilities to support future Beacon pipeline programs.”

References

1. Ascend. Ascend Advanced Therapies Partners with EW Healthcare Partners to Expand United States Capacity and Capabilities. Press Release. Nov. 12, 2024.
2. Ascend. Ascend Acquires GMP Manufacturing Capacity in Alachua, Florida from Beacon Therapeutics. Press Release. April 9, 2024.