Ascend Boosts Gene Therapy Manufacturing with Beacon Therapeutics Acquisition

• Ascend Advanced Therapies has acquired the chemistry, manufacturing, and controls team and site of Beacon Therapeutics in Alachua, Florida.

• As part of the deal, Ascend has agreed to a long-term partnership with Beacon to produce its gene therapies for clinical and commercial use.

Ascend Advanced Therapies, a gene therapy manufacturing specialist that launched just over a year ago, is already expanding. The company has acquired the chemistry, manufacturing, and controls team and site of Beacon Therapeutics in Alachua, Florida. This acquisition was announced in a press release on Tuesday.

As part of the deal, Ascend has also agreed to a long-term partnership with Beacon to produce its gene therapies for clinical and commercial use. Beacon, like Ascend, was founded in 2023 and focuses on ophthalmic gene therapies. It currently has a late-stage clinical candidate to treat X-linked retinitis pigmentosa and is working on two preclinical programs targeting dry age-related macular degeneration and cone-rod dystrophy.

The facility that Ascend is acquiring from Beacon in Alachua will complement the other sites it has acquired, such as its early-stage R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area and its optimization and process development plant in Munich. The latter will soon bring quality control release capabilities online.

With its headquarters in North London and these three production sites, Ascend will soon boast the combined network and product experience needed to support gene therapy clients across all stages of development. The deal between Ascend and Beacon was closed on April 1. The companies did not reveal the financial terms of the pact, nor did they say how many Beacon employees will be making the transition over to Ascend.