Wheeler Bio, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) for next-gen protein therapeutics, announced today the grand opening of their drug substance Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) facility inside the Ziggurat building (Echo Investment Capital) in Oklahoma City, OK.
By partnering uniquely with venture capital, Wheeler helps to ease the translational process from discovery to clinic for clients in biologics innovation. Founded by Dr. Jesse McCool, Christian Kanady of Echo, and Errik Anderson of Alloy Therapeutics and 82VS in 2021, the first-in-class CDMO was designed to provide accelerative development services to biotech startups and emerging biopharma innovators at a fair price.
Wheeler's new 35,000 square foot CGMP facility is comprised of two single-use drug substance lines (50L and 500L scale HyPerforma DynaDrive), warehousing, cold chain, a buffer and media prep suite, two master cell banking suites, a RightSource quality control testing lab (Charles River Labs), document control, utilities, and office space. The brownfield project was designed, built, and delivered under budget and ahead of schedule by Wheeler Bio, CRB, and Lingo Construction Services in collaboration with automation and validation partners Lucid and CAI. Two commissioning runs were completed recently using Wheeler's Portable CMC antibody process platform, and the first client orders for CGMP drug substance batches have already been received.
Coupled with a novel hub-and-spoke operational model (satellite preclinical material supply labs in metro areas with strong biotech clusters), Wheeler Bio is more accessible, more affordable, and more agile than larger CDMO service providers. The Portable CMC platform encompasses state-of-the-art process development capabilities overseen by seasoned staff, along with the latest technologies enabling excellence in CGMP manufacturing.
