Avid Bioservices Selected by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc. for Clinical Development of Novel Human Monoclonal Antiviral Antibody

TUSTIN, Calif., Aug. 26, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avid Bioservices, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDMO) (NASDAQ:CDMOP), a dedicated biologics contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) working to improve patient lives by providing high quality development and manufacturing services to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, today announced that Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc., has contracted Avid to provide process transfer, scale-up and clinical manufacturing services to support one of its development programs for a novel antiviral drug candidate. Avid and Mapp will immediately commence the initial phase of the project.

“We are extremely delighted and honored that Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc. contracted Avid Bioservices as their CDMO to support the company’s antiviral program. Today, we are all too familiar with viral outbreaks and, as part of the scientific community, we are proud to leverage our expertise to support the prevention and treatment of challenging viruses,” said Timothy Compton, chief commercial officer of Avid. “This agreement with Mapp Biopharmaceutical provides further evidence of the significant momentum that Avid’s business development team continues to generate toward our dual goals of revenue growth and customer base diversification. We are pleased to add Mapp to our growing list of customers. We are eager to get to work so that we can efficiently move toward CGMP manufacturing runs that will support Mapp’s advancement of their product into clinical studies.”

Dr. Ron Aimes, Vice President of Preclinical/Nonclinical Development and the program Principal Investigator, commented, “Mapp is happy to partner with Avid Bioservices to advance the development of our antiviral program towards IND and first in human evaluation. Avid’s more than 20 years of experience in biologics manufacturing, positive track record with regulatory agencies, extensive capabilities, and manufacturing capacity will help us make this medical countermeasure available for the United States as well as patients around the globe quickly, safely, and efficiently.” 

About Avid Bioservices, Inc.

Avid Bioservices is a dedicated contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) focused on development and CGMP manufacturing of biopharmaceutical drug substances derived from mammalian cell culture. The company provides a comprehensive range of process development, CGMP clinical and commercial manufacturing services for the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries. With 27 years of experience producing monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins, Avid's services include CGMP clinical and commercial drug substance manufacturing, bulk packaging, release and stability testing and regulatory submissions support. For early-stage programs the company provides a variety of process development activities, including upstream and downstream development and optimization, analytical methods development, testing and characterization. The scope of our services ranges from standalone process development projects to full development and manufacturing programs through commercialization.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under Contract No. HHSO100201900018C.