Ark Therapeutics achieves milestone in PsiOxus partnership

Ark Therapeutics has successfully met the first milestone in its manufacturing alliance with PsiOxus Therapeutics, as outlined in September 2011.

The company has been able to produce the ColoAd1 oncoloytic adenoviral product at its facility in Kuopio, Finland in a timely manner, allowing PsiOxus to initiate final pre-clinical toxicology studies of the compound.

Ark utilises its proprietary suspension-based single use process ATOSUS to achieve the necessary product quality and demonstrate the capability to exceed target process yields, which will aid its partner's plans to commence phase I testing in 2012.

This will help to bring a potentially promising new therapy option for colorectal cancer one step closer to market readiness.

Martyn Williams, chief executive officer of Ark, added: "This further validation for Ark's ATOSUS process as a platform for adenoviral manufacture is very helpful as we continue discussions with other potential partners."

This comes after Ark recently agreed to provide manufacturing services for the University of Glasgow in order to support a gene therapy programme.