Abzena plc (AIM:ABZA, ‘Abzena’ or the ‘Group’), a life sciences group providing services and technologies enabling the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, announces that its US biomanufacturing subsidiary, PacificGMP, has made two senior appointments to support its growth.

PacificGMP is a contract process development and manufacturing company based in San Diego, acquired by Abzena in September 2015.

Jon Strauss has been appointed Director of Manufacturing at PacificGMP. He joins from Genentech where, for the last five years, he was involved in all aspects of the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. He was previously a senior scientist at CMC Biologics, having also worked at Momenta and Bayer Healthcare.

Mike Faughnan has been appointed to the new role of Senior Director of Business Development, PacificGMP. He joins from Lonza Biologics where he spent more than five years as a manager in the sales and business development group. His previous roles include contract manufacturing organisations, Eden Biodesign and Cytovance Biologics.

Dr John Burt, CEO of Abzena commented:

“PacificGMP has attracted two very experienced individuals from leading companies in the sector.These appointments will support the growth that PacificGMP has continued to make since joining Abzena and we look forward to their valuable contribution.”

About Abzena

Abzena provides proprietary technologies and complementary services in the UK and US to enable the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products. The development of biopharmaceuticals is a growing area and requires specialist technology and expertise.

The Group comprises Antitope, PacificGMP, PolyTherics and TCRS, which between them have built a global customer base including the majority of the top 20 biopharmaceutical companies as well as large and small biotech companies and academic groups.

Antitope provides immunogenicity assessment, protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins, and cell line development for manufacture.

PacificGMP provides contract process development and manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy and cell therapy products, for preclinical and clinical studies.

PolyTherics specializes in proprietary site-specific conjugation technologies for antibody drug conjugate development and solutions for optimizing the therapeutic properties of biopharmaceuticals.

TCRS is a contract chemistry and bioconjugation business focused on ADCs and is establishing the capability to manufacture ADCs to GMP standards.

Abzena (AIM: ABZA) has its main operations in Cambridge, UK, San Diego, CA, US and Bristol, Pennsylvania, US . For more information, please see www.abzena.com.