Forge Biologics, a manufacturer of genetic medicines and a member of the Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services group, has entered an AAV development and manufacturing agreement to help advance Fractyl Health’s Rejuva pancreatic gene therapy platform for the treatment of patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D).

“We developed our FUEL platform to provide developers like Fractyl with a more efficient and scalable manufacturing solution to help reach broader patient populations,” said John Maslowski, President and CEO of Forge. “We are proud to support Fractyl in advancing a new class of metabolic disease therapies. Their mission to break the cycle of chronic disease management for patients is one we are honored and excited to help enable.”

“We are excited to collaborate with Forge in advancing our Rejuva pancreatic gene therapy platform. Forge’s expertise in large-scale, efficient AAV manufacturing is invaluable as we move forward in our mission to develop scalable treatments that aim to prevent and reverse obesity and metabolic disease,” said Harith Rajagopalan M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Fractyl Health.

Through this relationship, Forge will provide Fractyl process development, cGMP manufacturing and analytical development services. Fractyl will also leverage Forge’s FUEL platform, including its proprietary HEK293 suspension Ignition Cells and pEMBR 2.0 adenovirus helper plasmid. All development and manufacturing activities will occur at the Hearth, Forge’s 200,000 square foot gene therapy manufacturing facility in Columbus, Ohio.