Bio-Sourcing, a Belgian biotech, has signed a partnership agreement with Afrigen Biologics, a South African biotech, to develop a pilot program in South Africa of a groundbreaking biotherapeutic platform, BioMilk.

BioMilk represents a significant leap forward in the development of novel therapies, aiming to address global unmet medical needs and improve access to biotherapeutics, such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and insulin products.

The partners intend to create a new joint entity in South Africa to host the operations. Several public funding bodies have already expressed interest and the venture is open to additional investors.

Afrigen, which has previously pioneered the establishment of a state-of-the-art mRNA vaccine technology platform in Cape Town, and Bio-Sourcing, inventor of the technology underpinning BioMilk, believe that the platform will enable the end-to-end, including drug substance, manufacturing of the latest biologic medicines in South Africa.

Currently, biotherapeutic medicines such as mAbs are fully imported in South Africa at exorbitant prices, resulting in them being unavailable to the largest patient populations. This innovative technology aims not only strengthen South Africa’s pharmaceutical sovereignty, but would also drastically reduce production costs, thus improving the affordability and accessibility of the essential medicines in the fields of oncology and life-threatening autoimmune diseases.

“Our collaboration with Afrigen, a well-known and established player, represents an important step in the deployment of Bio-Sourcing in healthcare,” said Bertrand Mérot, CEO of Bio-Sourcing. “I am thrilled to bring the BioMilk technology to Africa, where its benefits in terms of investment and production costs and sustainability are more critical than anywhere else. I look forward to the installation of our first bulk plant and to providing South Africa and other African countries with access to the medicines patients need.”