Innova Biosciences relocates commercial team and preps for lab expansion

Bioconjugation services firm Innova Biosciences has relocated its UK sales and marketing operations citing growing pharmaceutical industry demand.

The firm moved its commercial team from its base at the Babraham Research Park in Cambridge, UK to a facility in Ashwell Point in neighbouring Sawston.

The rational for the relocation was to allow Innova to expand both its sales operation and its services laboratory.

CEO Nick Gee said: “Innova has expanded its laboratory space to accommodate the need for increased and continuous development of new products based on our bioconjugation technology, in addition to the custom services offering which has also grown year on year.”

The firm specialises in bioconjugation services based on its antibody and labelling technologies.

The move comes a few months after Innova launched an updated version of its oligonucleotide linker technology – Thunder-Link – that is capable of attaching compounds to antibody fragments and small proteins.

Bioconjugation demand

Innova is not the only firm to cite growing demand for bioconjugation services as a driver for expansion.

Last June, Novasep announced its intention to invest €10m ($11m) in a bioconjugation facility, explaining that its decision was prompted by a desire to expand its antibody-drug conjugation (ADC) production and development offering.

Similarly in January, US contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) and rumoured takeover target Catalent licensed rights to conjugation technology developed by Swiss drug manufacturer Roche.

And in February Novozyme’s subsidiary Allbumedix sought to bolster its albumin bioconjugation tech through an exclusive agreement with University College London (UCL) spin-out company Thiologics.