Tustin, CA-based Peregrine Pharmaceuticals ($PPHM) today touted its growth in contract manufacturing, saying a second facility has completed validation runs in preparation for commercial production and a third facility is being planned. The expansion of the contract manufacturing will help support the company as it reworks its R&D operations following the Phase III failure for its lead cancer drug, a pipeline project that had drawn interest from AstraZeneca, according to FierceBiotech.
Peregrine said today that Avid Bioservices, it contract manufacturing subsidiary, did $44 million in revenue for fiscal year 2016, up from $26.7 million in contract manufacturing the year before. It expects to grow that even further this year. Avid in March completed a 40,000-square-foot facility, located adjacent to the company's Tustin, CA, headquarters. That facility recently completed validation runs for three clients. The next step is to start commercial production at the facility.
"The past several months have been a busy and productive time at Peregrine as we work to optimally position the company for future success with both our contract manufacturing and drug development businesses,” CEO Steven W. King said in a statement.
While contract manufacturing is growing, the California company has struggled with its drug development. According to FierceBiotech, Peregrine reported in February that a combo of its lead drug bavituximab with docetaxel had failed a futility analysis comparing it with docetaxel alone. Now Peregrine will return to a series of small, early-stage combination studies with immunotherapy drugs.
Peregrine said today, “As part of these efforts, Peregrine is working closely with AstraZeneca to identify the optimal strategy for the companies’ clinical development collaboration focused on combining bavituximab with AstraZeneca’s PD-L1 inhibitor, durvalumab. It is expected that the initial trial in the collaboration will be a Phase I study evaluating the treatment combination in a range of solid tumors.”
- here’s the release
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Peregrine's Avid Bioservices unit wraps California biologics expansion