Mendus partners with NorthX to boost cancer immunotherapy manufacturing

Swedish biopharmaceutical company specializing in immunotherapies for tumor recurrence Mendus has partnered with NorthX Biologics, a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization, to establish the necessary infrastructure for manufacturing cell therapies in Sweden.

These facilities will be utilized for the late-stage development and commercial production of Mendus’ primary asset, vididencel. As part of its partnership with NorthX, Mendus has also forged an agreement with prominent Swedish investment firm Flerie Invest AB. Flerie will provide an initial investment of 90 million SEK to support the collaboration.

The investment will encompass various endeavours until Q2 2025, such as facility modifications, transferring the manufacturing process technology and manufacturing batches of vididencel for clinical trials.

After the financing transaction is completed, Flerie will join Van Herk Investments and the Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund or AP4, as one of the major shareholders of Mendus. In addition, Flerie’s CEO, Ted Fjällman, is expected to join Mendus’ board of directors.

Comments on partnership

The collaboration between Mendus and NorthX, along with the investment from Flerie, play vital roles in a more significant financing transaction. This transaction, contingent upon approval from an Extraordinary General Meeting slated for July 10, 2023, will be formally announced through a separate press release.

According to Mendus’ CEO Erik Manting, establishing large-scale manufacturing is essential to the vididencel development strategy. Manting also claimed that the partnership with NorthX and the investment from Flerie represented a momentous milestone for Mendus.

Commenting on the partnership, NorthX’s CEO Helena Strigård said that this strategic alliance not only positions Mendus for the commercialisation of vididencel, which would benefit cancer patients but also reinforces NorthX’s standing as the leading GMP manufacturing hub for advanced therapies in the Nordics.

Fjällman acknowledged the potential of Mendus’ approach in developing vididencel as a cancer maintenance therapy. According to him, the impressive doubling of median overall survival in the recent Phase 2 read-out in Acute Myeloid Leukemia compared to the current standard of care indicates the therapy’s ability to prolong the lives of many patients.

The Flerie’s CEO praised Mendus’ focus on scientific rigour and sound clinical trial design. He voiced his contentment in partnering with “very competent investors Van Herk and AP4” to help Mendus expand its manufacturing capacities through the collaboration with NorthX.

Fjällman also mentioned the importance of translating Mendus’ cutting-edge expertise in oncology, vaccines and cell therapies into “products available to patients worldwide.”