FRANCE – Evotec SE has officially launched the construction of its J.POD biologics manufacturing facility at its Campus Curie in Toulouse, France.

Construction of a biologics manufacturing facility commenced on September 16 and is the second facility of its kind and the first in Europe.

It will use Just – Evotec Biologics’ flexible J.POD technology to deliver clinical and commercial manufacturing capacity for biologics.

Biologics are a highly effective therapeutic option with broad applicability across many indications. However, traditional fed-batch manufacturing presents significant challenges, especially at the upscaling from clinical to commercial supply.

With a modular continuous manufacturing setup, the J.POD technology allows for highly intensified cGMP manufacturing of biologics at flexibly scalable quantities, thus reducing both scale-up risks and manufacturing costs significantly.

Evotec’s new facility will create high-skill jobs

J.POD Toulouse, France (EU) is expected to be operational in the second half of 2024 and the company says it will create upwards of 150 new high-skilled jobs on Evotec’s Campus Curie in Toulouse.

Craig Johnstone, chief operating officer of Evotec, said: “Today’s groundbreaking for J.POD Toulouse, France (EU), Just – Evotec Biologics’ second facility, marks an important milestone on our path to making biologics globally available.

“J.POD is a disruptive technology that makes biologics manufacturing not only scalable, but even more importantly, available right where they are needed. We are grateful to be able to realize this project with funding from the French government, the Occitanie Region, Bpifrance, the Haute-Garonne prefecture as well as Toulouse Métropole.”

In addition to J.POD(R) technology, Evotec is building data-driven scientific capabilities designed to meet future viral threats, which include rapid discovery, optimization and development of novel therapeutics.
 
J.POD(R) 2 EU will be supported with up to €50 million (US$48.5 million) from the French government. The total investment Evotec plans to undertake is estimated at €150 million (US$145 million).

The first facility of this kind, J.POD Redmond, Washington DC (US), was opened in August 2021. The first manufacturing runs for valued partners, one of them being the US Department of Defense, were initiated shortly afterward.

US DOD taps Evotec to bolster its defenses against bubonic plague

In another separate development, Evotec SE has received almost US$50 million from the US government to develop monoclonal antibodies that target the bacterium Yersinia pestis—otherwise known as the bubonic plague.

The plague, or “black death,” killed many millions of people across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in three major waves of infection spanning 500 years.

The final pandemic at the end of the 1800s spread across Asia and allowed science to identify the bacterium responsible and its transmission via fleas that were themselves transported around the world on black rats.

The disease is one of the targets of interest under the US Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Accelerated Antibodies Program.

The department has inked a US$49.9 million contract with Evotec’s Seattle-based biologics unit to take either new or existing monoclonal antibodies into phase 1 trials for bubonic plague.

Evotec will use its so-called J.DESIGN biologics platform to not only discover and optimize these antibodies but to develop and manufacture them at its Redmond, Washington, facility, the company said.

It means the site will join the department’s DOD’s Advanced Development and Manufacturing network.

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