Virica Biotech (“Virica”), a cell enhancement company specializing in viral sensitizers (VSE™) for the manufacture of viral vectors, announced today that it is receiving consulting services and funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), under the Canada-Japan Corporate Co-Innovation Program to collaborate with FUJIFILM Biosciences. The collaboration will focus on optimizing a VSE formulation for FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD® HEK293 media to support academic and commercial AAV producers worldwide.
AAV vectors are its cornerstone in vivo gene delivery for gene therapies, but it remains difficult and expensive to build them at scale. As pipelines expand to more indications and broader patient populations, significantly greater quantities of high-quality AAV are required, while the need for commercially viable therapies puts pressure on the cost of goods. Current production methods and underlying economics are often insufficient to meet this demand. Combining high-throughput FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD media with Virica’s VSE enhancers, the collaboration aims to deliver significant AAV productivity gains and more robust, scalable processes.
To support FUJIFILM Biosciences’ product strategy, Virica will optimize VSE formulations and process parameters for AAV production in FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD HEK293 media with suspension HEK293 cells. This work will leverage Virica’s high-throughput virology (HTV™) platform, design of experiments (DoE) frameworks, and analytical tests. FUJIFILM Biosciences will contribute deep expertise in media and feed supplements and scaling capabilities to the collaborative project. The project, supported by NRC IRAP, aims to create VSE formulations tailored to the FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD HEK293 system, enabling an off-the-shelf amplifier-media combination that can be adopted by end users with minimal process changes.
We see a strong match between our VSE technology and the FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD media portfolio. Following the recent release of our CellVantage-AAV off-the-shelf enhancer, our goal is to provide an optimized formulation to provide further AAV productivity gains specifically in the FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD HEK293 system.”
Dr. Jean-Simon Diallo, Scientific Co-Founder and CEO of Virica Biotech
“We remain committed to delivering end-to-end solutions that combine high-performance media with enabling technologies” said Yutaka Yamaguchi, President and CEO of FUJIFILM Biosciences. “Optimizing Virica’s VSE-based amplifiers with the FUJIFILM Biosciences BalanCD HEK293 system will help us offer an easy-to-use option to improve AAV yields and support efficient scale-up for our customers.”
