Bend Bioscience is Open for Business, Announces Launch of New Drug Delivery Innovation Lab in Bend, Oregon

BEND, Ore., Feb. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bend Bioscience is proud to announce the opening of their R&D and Innovation lab in Bend, Oregon. Including 4500 square feet of lab and office space and a work environment for around 20 colleagues, this facility is part of a larger planned footprint that includes process science and clinical manufacturing facilities planned to open later this year.

The Bend Bioscience team has recently doubled in size and is made up of accomplished leaders, scientists and technicians. The team plans to add more colleagues in 2023 and beyond. With over 200 years of combined experience and an average tenure of 15 years in the pharmaceutical and drug delivery industry, this team is well equipped to help their clients find new ways to formulate & develop the next generation of therapeutics.

"There continues to be an unmet demand for solving tough drug delivery and bioavailability challenges, with targets and therapies becoming more and more customized," says Michael Grass, Bend Bioscience's Head of Drug Delivery Innovation. "With this lab and team, we have the attitude and aptitude to partner with our clients to address these needs and to innovate on new technologies."

Specialized Offering to Enable New Therapeutics

This lab and team are presently supporting client work in the areas of:

• Formulation feasibility, screening, and prototype manufacture including spray drying and solid dosage forms.
• Development and refinement of target product profiles to guide formulation development and optimization.
• In silico prediction of formulation performance, stability, and manufacturability.
• Analytical method development.
• Physical and chemical characterization and biorelevant dissolution and mechanistic performance testing.
• Real time, accelerated, and predictive physical and chemical stability studies.

Dana Settell, Co-Founder of Bend Bioscience, says, "We see ourselves as an extension of our clients' team and focus on developing a true partnership with our clients. We treat each customer's molecule as if it were our own. Our approach and expertise allow our clients to focus on the important stuff -- the therapies and patient(s)."

Rod Ray, former Bend Research CEO, consultant, and board member for various pharmaceutical and technology companies commented, "The launch of Bend Bioscience has a positive impact on Bend's dynamic life sciences community by creating high-value jobs, leveraging local networks, and adding to the increasing diversity of pharmaceutical and biotech companies and their strategic partners in the industry."

About Bend Bioscience:

Bend Bioscience, located in Bend, Oregon, in partnership with CoreRx, Inc. a QHP Capital portfolio company, is an early-phase Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with an emphasis on drug delivery R&D partnerships, product development, and early phase manufacturing for enhanced formulations utilizing particle engineering-based drug delivery technologies. Learn more at www.bendbioscience.com and follow Bend Bioscience on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/bend-bioscience

Media Inquiries
Melissa Sullivan
media@bendbioscience.com

by bendbioscience

Bioscience Company Announces Plans for Bend-Based Lab

Bend Bioscience will act as a research hub for pharmaceutical companies looking to outsource research.

A new Bend-based bioscience lab could become operational as early as December of this year, with manufacturing and analytical capabilities coming online in mid-2023.

Earlier this month, the early-phase Bend Bioscience, along with the private equity manager QHP Capital, announced plans to open a $16 million, 20,000-square-foot lab in Bend. The lab will not be dedicated to developing any specific technologies, but serve as a hub for partnerships with pharmaceutical companies looking to outsource bioscience research and development.

“As business, our vision is that of a partner or a contractor. We aren't on going off on or own and developing new technology. What we do is invest in the infrastructure, equipment, instrumentation, and expertise,” says Dan Dobry, co-founder of Bend Bioscience, which launched last year. and the chief strategy officer at its Florida-based parent company, CoreRx. “When pharmaceutical companies have a particular problem such as stabilizing vaccines, or enhancing oral bioavailability of poorly water soluble molecules or something else, we use our expertise to enhance and co-develop technologies with our partners.”

Dobry says current trends in the pharmaceutical industry favor larger companies outsourcing bioscience research rather than doing the research in-house.

As treatments and gene therapy become more specialized, he says demand for bioscience solutions, and investment into the sector, will continue to grow.

“For companies looking to develop a new product, either experimental or commercial, there's a scarcity of resources out there to do it with. A lot of bigger pharmaceutical companies have chosen models to outsource to expertise rather than to try to carry that cost and overhead internally,” says Dobry.

He adds that trends in oncology and molecular biology have led to further and further specialization in the industry. For example, treatments which attack one specific kind of cancer cell — while leaving the other cells in the body alone — would be poisonous if administered to a patient with a different kind of cancer.

Key areas of expertise and infrastructure for the Bend Bioscience team will include spray-drying, a process that involves atomizing a liquid in hot gas, creating dry solid powder, as well as process bioavailability enhancement, stabilization of biologics and vaccines, and particle engineering for pulmonary delivery.

The new lab will employ about 50 people. Oregon’s second Congressional district, in which Bend is located, had more than 150 bioscience firms in 2016, according to the Oregon Bioscience Association.

Dobry says the presence of multiple bioscience facilities in the area does not present a competitive threat — and in fact, he hopes the company will partner with the Oregon Bioscience Association once the facility is complete to further grow Oregon’s bioscience sector.

“I don't worry about oversaturation. Our customer base isn’t Bend, it’s the global biotech and pharmaceutical industry, so it's irrelevant to our customers who use our services where we are located,” says Dobry. “For us it’s better to be near the cluster. It means asking someone to move out here for a job is an easier prospect. It means that even if things don’t work out, they’ll still be able to find a job where they live.”

In August, Oregon Freeze Dry announced the construction of a similar bioscience research and development facility in Albany, also citing increased demand from biopharmaceutical companies as a reason for its expansion.

SANDER GUSINOW

by bendbioscience