SillaJen and ABL Europe have expanded their strategic manufacturing collaboration. Under the current agreement, ABL is currently manufacturing Pexa-Vec (formerly JX-594) for SillaJen’s multinational, randomized Phase 3, open-label study of Pexa-Vec in patients with advanced liver cancer. Under the expanded agreement, ABL will also provide development, manufacturing & QC release testing services for SillaJen’s pipeline product, JX-970.   

“Based on SillaJen’s established partnership with ABL, we are pleased to further expand our agreement to include another exciting product in our pipeline,” stated Georg Roth, Ph.D, senior vice president, Technical Operations at SillaJen.  “ABL has significant experience in virus manufacturing, and we are glad to be able to utilize their expertise in order to continue to expedite the development of these important oncolytic virus therapies.”

Pexa-Vec is the most advanced product candidate from SillaJen’s proprietary SOLVE (Selective Oncolytic Vaccinia Engineering) platform. The vaccinia strain backbone of Pexa-Vec naturally targets cancer cells due to common genetic defects in cancer cells. Pexa-Vec was engineered to enhance this by deleting its thymidine kinase (TK) gene, thus making it dependent on the cellular TK expressed at persistently high levels in cancer cells. 

JX-970 is an oncolytic virus that is derived from a Western Reserve strain vaccinia virus, and its tumor selectivity has been optimized through deletion of thymidine kinase (TK) and vaccinia growth factor (VGF). In addition, it expresses GM-CSF to stimulate immune responses.