GERMANTOWN, Md., Nov. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Orgenesis Inc. (NASDAQ: ORGS), a manufacturer, service provider and developer of advanced cell therapies, today announced that its subsidiary, Masthercell Global (“Masthercell”), a cell therapy-dedicated Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), has launched a new production wing of 600 square meters at its Belgium site in the presence of Belgium’s Public Health and Social Affairs Minister, Maggie De Block, and the Minister-President of Wallonia, Willy Borsus. Masthercell is also backed by Great Point Partners, LLC (“GPP”), a leading healthcare investment firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The expansion of the current Belgium plant provides Masthercell five additional state-of-the-art, late stage and commercial ready clean rooms. This new wing has been designed with an agility–by-design approach. This allows clients to adapt clinical versus commercial segregation and clean room surface optimization for both isolation of certain parts of the facility and doubling of clean room size.
“We are very pleased to announce the opening of our five new clean rooms, on schedule within the timeline we communicated to our partners. We are very proud of this facility expansion and we have also commenced planning for a commercial manufacturing facility. I sincerely want to thank the teams for their commitment and hard work in achieving these objectives,” commented Eric Mathieu, Chief of Operations for Masthercell.
Each clean room of the new production wing is 30 square meters with independent HVAC systems to ensure full autonomy and independent maintenance management. The new wing also brings additional capabilities, including two development laboratories, one quality control laboratory and additional warehouse capabilities.
“Providing Masthercell’s quality of service in late stage and commercial manufacturing was one of our priorities during the construction of the new infrastructure,” commented Dr. Denis Bedoret, Managing Director of Masthercell. “The cell therapy industry, and specifically our partners, are eager to have access to reliable and additional state-of-the-art facilities for their commercial projects. Our objective is to help them access the market faster with tailor made capabilities. Today, we are pleased to offer these key assets to our partners and more widely to any cell therapy company facing a lack of production or development capacities.”
About Orgenesis
Orgenesis is a vertically-integrated biopharmaceutical company with expertise and unique experience in cell therapy development and support services. Through its Israeli subsidiary, Orgenesis Ltd., Orgenesis is developing technology designed to successfully reprogram human liver cells into glucose-responsive, fully functional, Insulin Producing Cells (IPCs). Orgenesis believes that converting the diabetic patient’s own tissue into insulin-producing cells has the potential to overcome the significant issues of donor shortage, cost and exposure to chronic immunosuppressive therapy associated with islet cell transplantation. Through its Masthercell Global subsidiary, a global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), Orgenesis is able to deliver optimized process industrialization capacities to cell therapy organizations and speed up the arrival of their therapies onto the market. From technology selection to business modeling, GMP manufacturing, process development, and quality management, Masthercell’s teams are fully committed to helping their clients fulfill their objective of providing sustainable and affordable therapies to their patients. Masthercell operates in a validated and flexible facility located in the strategic center of Europe within the Walloon healthcare cluster, Biowin. This integrated approach supports the Company’s business philosophy of bringing to market significant life-improving medical treatments. For more information, visit www.orgenesis.com.
About Great Point Partners
Great Point Partners (“GPP”), founded in 2003 and based in Greenwich, CT, is a leading health care investment firm with approximately $1.1 billion of equity capital currently under management and 28 professionals, investing in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. GPP is currently making new private equity investments from GPP II, which has closed on $215 million. Great Point manages capital in private (GPP I, $156 million and GPP II, $215 million of committed capital) and public (BioMedical Value Fund strategy, approximately $750 million) equity funds. Great Point Partners has provided growth equity, growth recapitalization, and management buyout financing to more than 100 growing health care companies. The private equity funds invest across all sectors of the health care industry with particular emphasis on biopharmaceutical services and supplies, outsourcing and alternate site care, pharmaceutical infrastructure and information technology enabled businesses. The firm pursues a proactive and proprietary approach to sourcing investments and tuck-in acquisitions for its portfolio companies. Reach Great Point at 203-971-3300 or www.gppfunds.com.
Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements involve substantial uncertainties and risks and are based upon our current expectations, estimates and projections and reflect our beliefs and assumptions based upon information available to us at the date of this release. We caution readers that forward-looking statements are predictions based on our current expectations about future events. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the success of our reorganized CDMO operations, the success of our partnership with Great Point Partners, our ability to achieve and maintain overall profitability, the sufficiency of working capital to realize our business plans, the development of our transdifferentiation technology as therapeutic treatment for diabetes which could, if successful, be a cure for Type 1 Diabetes; our technology not functioning as expected; our ability to retain key employees; our ability to satisfy the rigorous regulatory requirements for new procedures; our competitors developing better or cheaper alternatives to our products and the risks and uncertainties discussed under the heading “RISK FACTORS” in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2017, and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement for any reason.
Contact for Orgenesis:
David Waldman
Crescendo Communications, LLC
Tel: 212-671-1021
Orgs@crescendo-ir.com