Northwest Biotherapeutics Announces MHRA Approval Of License for GMP Manufacturing At Sawston, UK Facility

Northwest Biotherapeutics Announces MHRA Approval Of License for GMP Manufacturing At Sawston, UK Facility

BETHESDA, Md., December 21, 2021 – Northwest Biotherapeutics (OTCQB: NWBO) (“NW Bio”), a biotechnology company developing DCVax^® personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, today announced that approval has been received from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) of a license for manufacture of GMP (clinical grade) cell therapy products at its Sawston, UK facility.

The MHRA license approval enables the manufacturing of DCVax-L products to get under way at the Sawston facility in addition to continuing at the smaller GMP facility in London.  The license also permits the import and GMP manufacture of other cell therapy products under the UK’s supply of unlicensed medicinal products (‘Specials’) regime and for clinical trials under the Investigational Medicinal Products (IMP) Programme. 

The Company is developing the Sawston facility in phases, both to optimize the timing of capital requirements and to enable each phase to be state of the art when developed, as manufacturing technologies are advancing significantly in the field of cell therapies.  To date, the Company has developed Phase 1A of the facility, comprising approximately 4,400 square feet of the overall 88,345 square feet.  The Company anticipates that Phase 1A alone will be able to manufacture DCVax-L products for 45-50 patients per month, or 450-500 patients per year – a significant increase from the current manufacturing capacity of four to six patients per month which, to date, has been taking place in a GMP clean room facility in London, UK.

This MHRA license is a culmination of intensive preparations that have been underway for much of 2021.  The process included an extensive application process, a week-long inspection of all aspects of the physical facility, its construction and equipment, all aspects of the facility’s operations, including all operating systems, flow of materials and activities, sterility, quality control, staff and other factors, and all of the regulatory documentation, including standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the facility and for the product, batch manufacturing records, data from practice manufacturing runs and other required documents.

This MHRA license follows the license approval by the UK’s Human Tissue Authority (HTA) in October.  That license covers the collection, processing and storage of human tissue and cells for medical purposes, including cell therapies such as DCVax-L.  The preparatory work and applications for the MHRA and HTA licenses have been carried out by Advent Bioservices, NWBio’s UK entity contract manufacturer, operator, and license holder. 

About Northwest Biotherapeutics

Northwest Biotherapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on developing personalized immunotherapy products designed to treat cancers more effectively than current treatments, without toxicities of the kind associated with chemotherapies, and on a cost-effective basis, in both North America and Europe.  The Company has a broad platform technology for DCVax^® dendritic cell-based vaccines.  The Company’s lead program is a 331-patient Phase III trial of DCVax^®-L for newly diagnosed Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).  GBM is the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer, and is an “orphan disease.”  This Phase III trial reached data lock and the Company is actively continuing to move toward announcement of top line data. The Company has also developed DCVax^®-Direct for inoperable solid tumor cancers.  It has completed a 40-patient Phase I trial and, as resources permit, plans to pursue Phase II trials.  The Company previously conducted a Phase I/II trial with DCVax-L for advanced ovarian cancer together with the University of Pennsylvania.