QHP Capital has slotted another company into its portfolio of contract service providers, snapping up cell and gene therapy specialist Applied StemCell and outlining plans to support its expansion.
ASC is built on a platform for genome editing called Targatt and good manufacturing practice (GMP) induced pluripotent stem cell capabilities. The California-based company uses the platforms to offer cell and gene therapy research along with development and manufacturing services including GMP-grade production of cells and plasmid DNA.
Demand for cell and gene therapy services has taken off in recent years, creating bottlenecks, and ASC has brought more capacity online, notably by committing to the expansion of its GMP facility last year. The expansion effort will now benefit from the support of QHP, a private equity firm.
“Accelerating preclinical research and enabling manufacturing economies of scale are some of the biggest challenges facing the future of the regenerative medicine market,” QHP partners Matt Jenkins and Jeff Edwards said in a statement. “We look forward to working with ASC as they expand their commercial organization and broaden their market presence.”
QHP, formerly known as NovaQuest Private Equity, has carved out a niche in the pharma services space in recent years, investing more than $1 billion in 10 companies since 2018. The investments have given QHP a portfolio that includes companies such as the CDMO CoreRx, CRO Catalyst Clinical Research and eSource technology provider Clinical Ink.
Jenkins and Edwards said ASC fits with QHP’s “investment focus of providing strategic capital and support to firms with established offerings that are positioned to scale to meet the needs of the industry.” Since QHP bought CoreRx in 2021, the CDMO has opened a product development center, acquired Nucleo Life Sciences and invested in formulation development and manufacturing equipment.