- Ginkgo Bioworks has been awarded a BARDA contract worth up to $22.2 million to develop technologies improving domestic monoclonal antibody manufacturing.
- The project aims to enhance rapid, scalable, and cost-effective production of anti-filovirus mAbs targeting Ebola and Sudan viruses.
Ginkgo Bioworks has secured a contract worth up to $22.2 million through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s (BARDA) Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Preparedness Consortium (BioMaP-Consortium). The project aims to develop innovations to strengthen and reduce the costs of domestic biomanufacturing of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for protection against filoviruses such as Ebola (EBOV) and Sudan (SUDV).
The programme will focus on producing an anti-filovirus mAbs cocktail, 1C3 and 1C11, which were discovered and developed by Emory University. Ginkgo will lead a consortium of partners — including Advanced BioScience Laboratories (ABL), Inc., Isolere Bio by Donaldson, NeuImmune, Inc., and ProteoNic BV — to integrate technologies spanning the full process of mAb drug production.
“Rapidly scalable and cost-effective manufacturing of mAbs is crucial to our national biosecurity and public health preparedness. We are honoured to work with BARDA and our BioMaP-Consortium partners to bring these and other innovations to the domestic production of mAb-based medical countermeasures.”
Jennifer Wipf, General Manager of Ginkgo’s Discovery & Manufacturing Solutions business unit
The collaboration brings together expertise across bioprocessing, antibody engineering, and manufacturing innovation. Partners including ABL, Isolere Bio, NeuImmune, and ProteoNic will contribute proprietary technologies such as advanced expression systems and process optimisation tools.
