Bayer HealthCare Strikes Deal With Mission Bay Incubator Tenant Aronora

February 25, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor

Bayer HealthCare is betting on one of the companies it has been nurturing in its San Francisco life sciences incubator, saying Wednesday it will partner with Aronora, Inc. on a “strategic alliance” to manufacture the startup’s cardiovascular AB-022 compound.

Financial terms of the deal were not released. Aronora joined the incubator in September 2012 and is one of five companies in the 6,000-square-foot Mission Bay facility. Other startups there include ProLynx, which develops technology for drug conjugation, and Xcell Biosciences, which is focusing on primary cell technologies.

"At Bayer, we believe collaboration is an essential way to bring new therapies to the patient. This philosophy led us to open the CoLaborator, a unique incubator space for start-up companies next door to our U.S. Innovation Center in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco," said the company when it founded the space.. :Located in the heart of the city’s thriving life sciences cluster, the CoLaborator is within walking distance of UCSF, QB3, the Gladstone Institutes, several venture capital groups, and more than 60 emerging life science companies, making the Mission Bay location well-suited to support the success of a start-up company."

As part of today's deal, the Berkeley site Bayer HealthCare will partner with the Portland, Ore.-based Aronara on the early-stage commercial development of proprietary biologics. Aronora also has satellite operations in San Francisco and focuses on finding therapies for difficult-to-treat life-threatening diseases, including heart attack, stroke and severe infection-associated coagulopathy.

“We have established a close, trusted relationship with Bayer HealthCare," said Andras Gruber, CEO of Aronora. "We are thrilled to extend our relationship with this agreement. The close proximity of Bayer's research and manufacturing sites to the CoLaborator has made this partnership a natural fit for us. The in-depth drug discovery and manufacturing expertise at Bayer has been valuable for advancing our compound towards the clinic."

Bayer is the third largest biotech employer in the Bay Area, with a manufacturing facility in Berkeley and its U.S. research hub, the U.S. Innovation Center in San Francisco. Bayer HealthCare, had annual sales of $21.45 billion in 2013, and is based in Leverkusen, Germany. Bayer HealthCare combines the global activities of the Animal Health, Consumer Care, Medical Care and Pharmaceuticals divisions.

"This partnership with Aronora highlights Bayer's unique Bay Area footprint spanning from early stage research through development and manufacturing. We are proud to offer our partners access to Bayer's experts across the entire drug development process," said Chris Haskell, head of Bayer's U.S. Science Hub, in a statement. "Our partnering strategy is designed to be flexible, to meet the needs of our collaborators including start-ups like Aronora. We are excited to advance this collaboration to share our manufacturing expertise and capabilities."

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