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ScaleReady awards a G-Rex® Grant to Moonlight Bio

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ST. PAUL, Minn., Dec. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ScaleReady, in collaboration with Wilson Wolf Manufacturing, Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) and CellReady, today announced that Moonlight Bio has been awarded a G-Rex® Grant. Moonlight Bio's G-Rex® Grant will expedite process development and IND-enabling studies of their lead CAR T cell therapy for the treatment of solid tumors.

"We are grateful to receive a G-Rex Grant to support the advancement of our lead CAR T asset into the clinic in a platform that is cost effective and scalable. This mechanism is a creative solution that provides access to expertise and a highly efficient manufacturing platform to biotechnology companies in a way that saves significant time and money," said Dr. Jordan Jarjour, Chief Scientific Officer at Moonlight Bio.

"I'm confident that Moonlight Bio will quickly find out that ScaleReady's expertise and the G-Rex Grant Program will preserve the two most precious commodities for any cell therapy entity, time and money," said John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Wolf Manufacturing and co-inventor of G-Rex.

Moonlight Bio's technology is based on a recent article published in Nature from the labs of two of their scientific co-founders, Dr. Kole Roybal and Dr. Jaehyuk Choi, that describes a unique approach to enhance engineered T cell therapies by co-opting mutations that naturally occur in T cell malignancies (PMID: 38326614). By screening dozens of mutations from T cell neoplasms, their results indicate that exploiting naturally occurring mutations represents a promising approach to discover how solutions derived from the selective process of cancer evolution can improve T cell therapies.

As part of the G-Rex Grant, ScaleReady will provide Moonlight Bio access to a commercially viable CAR T manufacturing platform. The G-Rex Grant may also be used to defray the cost associated with validation runs to support the IND-enabling studies for Moonlight's lead CAR T asset.  Additionally, Moonlight Bio will get access to Bio-Techne's new closed system reagent solutions, ProPak™ and GMP Cytokines for simplification of cytokine delivery. Finally, Moonlight Bio will have the option to receive a complimentary analysis of their master manufacturing batch records by CellReady, the world's first and only G-Rex centric contract development and manufacturing organization, to ensure commercial viability of the manufacturing process.

ScaleReady's G-Rex Grant Program is a $20M initiative to advance the state of cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) development and manufacturing by awarding individual Grant Awards worth up to $300,000.  G-Rex Grant Recipients also gain access to exclusive support from ScaleReady's growing consortium of G-Rex Grant Partners who bring best-in-class tools and technologies as well as unparalleled knowledge and expertise in the areas of cGMP manufacturing, quality and regulatory affairs, CGT business operations, and more.