Patheon to provide development & commercial manufacturing services for needle-free drug delivery system

Weston Medical Group plc recently announced that it has signed an agreement with Patheon UK Ltd for the manufacture of Intraject, Weston Medical's lead product platform for needle-free injection of liquid drugs. The agreement will allow for a commercial-scale Intraject drug filling and assembly line to be installed at Patheon's facilities in Swindon, UK. As a result, Weston Medical will be able to provide its licensees with commercial volumes of fully validated, drug-filled Intraject devices by the end of 2002.

Separately, Weston Medical has also completed the first phase of the technology transfer of its proprietary glass drug capsule production process to its third party manufacturing partner -- Munnerstadter Glaswarenfabrik GmbH. This line is now capable of providing fully validated glass drug capsules for Weston Medical and its licensees.

"Our agreement with Patheon is a major step forward in achieving our manufacturing goal. This is to create and manage a fully integrated third party supply chain that is capable of delivering fully assembled, drug-filled and ready-to-use Intraject devices to our pharmaceutical partners," commented Mr Christopher Samler, Chief Executive of Weston Medical. He added, "Patheon is globally recognised as one of the leading providers of manufacturing services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries."

Intraject is a pre-filled, disposable, needle-free drug delivery system that is suitable for a wide range of currently marketed liquid drugs as well as those in clinical development. These include therapeutic proteins, monoclonal antibody-based drugs, vaccines, and small molecule therapeutics. Weston Medical's commercial strategy is to outlicense the Intraject technology to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for specified drugs. To this end, the Company has completed licensing agreements with several leading companies, including Roche and GlaxoSmithKline.

"Patheon already provides a drug filling capability to support Intraject-based clinical and stability studies for Weston Medical and its licensees. Construction of the commercial-scale drug filling and assembly line is underway and on schedule for installation at Patheon," said Mr Robert Tedford, Chief Executive Officer of Patheon Inc.

Source: Weston Medical Group plc

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