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IBIO *********Must Read Due Diligence**********

iBio Expands Exclusive Product Collaboration With Novici Biotech

"iBio, Inc. (NYSE MKT: IBIO), a leading provider of plant-based biotechnology for developing and manufacturing biological products, and Novici Biotech LLC (Novici) have agreed to broaden their commercial collaboration, currently focused on antibodies and certain vaccine products"
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/1153221.htm

Novici is working with Mapp:

U.S. Will Increase Production of the Ebola Drug ZMapp, but May Not Meet Demand

"Mapp is said to be working with another small company, Novici Biotech, which has a method of tweaking the genetic instructions for the antibodies in a way that could boost production."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/us-to-increase-production-of-experimental-drug-but-may-not-meet-demand.html?_r=0



iBio Responds to Inquiries About its Role in Emergency Response to Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak

Marketwired iBio, Inc. Oct 16, 2014 8:31 AM
NEWARK, DE--(Marketwired - Oct 16, 2014) - iBio, Inc. (NYSE MKT: IBIO) today confirmed, in response to shareholder and media inquiries: (i) the applicability of its issued U.S. iBioLaunch™ platform patents and related proprietary technology to further development and production of antibodies that target the Ebola virus, and (ii) that iBio has an ongoing relationship with Caliber Biotherapeutics LLC reflected by a License and Collaboration Agreement dated February 14, 2013 pursuant to which iBio and Caliber have been collaborating on commercial opportunities for recombinant antibodies and antibody-related proteins based on the speed, efficiency, and cost advantages of producing pharmaceutical proteins in plants instead of with bioreactor-based manufacturing methods.

Based on published scientific data, the superior homogeneity of antibody glysolylation (the addition of sugars to proteins) in plants can provide significant efficacy advantages over similar antibodies produced in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells.

iBio has offered to assist the U.S. government by making its proprietary technology available for emergency use to enable the manufacture and yield optimization of certain experimental antibody-based drugs that address the current Ebola virus outbreak, to the extent such assistance is requested by the government.


IBIO only play on ZMapp for Ebola

The producer of the preferred Ebola drug ZMapp is Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, a private company. The United States Health and Human Services Department has a $42 million dollar contract with Mapp to advance the commercial production of ZMapp

Mapp Bio currently is unable to produce large quantities of this drug and needs third parties to assist in production. The most likely candidate to do that is Caliber Biotherapeutics. Caliber has a huge facility for producing vaccines; but Caliber is also a private company and that's where iBio comes in:

iBio licenses it's iBioLaunch™ platform to Caliber, and therefore iBio's technology will be crucial to speeding up the production of ZMapp to deal with the exploding Ebola epidemic.

iBioLaunch™ uses proprietary, transient gene expression in unmodified green plants instead of materials such as chicken eggs, mammalian and insect cells, transgenic plants, and human blood plasma required by other systems, to produce important biologic pharmaceuticals. This unique plant-based platform offers a number of significant advantages over other systems:

Ability to synthesize complex proteins at which other systems have failed
Simplicity, scalability and flexibility
Reduced capital investment
Lower operating costs
Surge capacity
Rapid production times – gene sequence to factory-scale protein harvest
Eliminates the need of bioreactors
Low risk of contamination by animal pathogens


Based on available research, I believe that the most likely scenario going forward is that Mapp will produce ZMapp using both a traditional mammalian process and continue with the plant based process that they already use. However, the facility that Mapp is currently using can only produce 10-20 doses by year end. Caliber's facilities (using Ibio's proprietary technology) can produce thousands of doses in a shorter time frame to treat the thousands of people who currently are or will be suffering from Ebola in Africa and beyond.


For more info please read the articles below:

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/09/20140902b.html

http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/Ibio-About-To-Help-Mass-Produce-Ebola-Drug-ZMapp/s/via/24698/article/view/p/mid/1/id/3/

http://seekingalpha.com/news/2026025-ibio-jumps-on-possible-zmapp-production-ramp

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2578145-ibios-role-in-ebola-response-illustrates-the-companys-strength?uprof=44

*All opinions stated are solely my own and are no substitute for your own research. Happy Investing!