Porton Advanced Announces Collaboration with TongEYE to Accelerate Development of iPSC-RPEC transplantation therapy

SUZHOU, China, May 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Porton Advanced, a leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) specializing in advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), is pleased to announce its partnership with TongEye Medical Technology (TongEYE), an innovator focusing on cell therapy drugs for ophthalmic diseases. Porton Advanced will provide comprehensive CDMO services to support iPSC-derived retinal pigment epithelium cell (RPEC) therapy program, including CMC development and IND application assistance, to accelerate the therapy development progress.

The iPSC-RPEC transplantation therapy has demonstrated significant potential in addressing blinding eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). TongEYE has established highly efficient and proprietary induction method for differentiation through pioneering work in retinal disease mechanisms and innovative therapies. This collaboration leverages Porton Advanced's extensive expertise in iPSC and cell therapy to provide end-to-end CDMO services encompassing iPSC reprogramming and cell banking, process optimization for RPE-directed differentiation, GMP manufacturing of RPE cells, rigorous quality studies, and IND application support.

"We are pleased to partner with Porton Advanced, a leading CDMO with proven track records," said Dr. Guo-Tong Xu, Founder and Chief Scientist of TongEYE. "Their CDMO capabilities and project experience in iPSC will significantly accelerate our ophthalmic cell therapy development program to benefit patients sooner."

Andrew Chen, CFO of Porton Advanced, commented: "TongEYE's R&D team has developed a robust RPE differentiation method and the products have been showing safety and functionality in preclinical studies. Through this collaboration, we will combine our iPSC-CMC expertise with their innovative platform to overcome key technical challenges in iPSC-based therapy development. Porton Advanced will integrate the international R&D expertise and rigorous quality systems and provide comprehensive support to advance this promising treatment globally."

About TongEYE

TongEye Medical Technology (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. was established in October 2023, focusing mainly on the development and production of cell therapy drugs for ophthalmic diseases. In November, the company completed its angel round of financing. The company has multiple research and development pipelines. Among them, the key project of transplanting unique naive RPE cells derived from iPSCs for the treatment of dry retinal degeneration has achieved significantly better therapeutic effects in animal models compared with matureRPE cells. The established highly efficient induction and differentiation method with independent intellectual property rights has shortened the traditional differentiation cycle from 120 to 150 days to just 25 days, significantly reducing costs and improving accessibility. This brings hope for vision improvement to hundreds of millions of patients with dry retinal degeneration worldwide.

About Porton Advanced

Porton Advanced Solutions is a subsidiary of the leading CDMO, Porton Pharma Solutions. Porton Advanced has headquarters in Cranbury, New Jersey, and two GMP sites in Suzhou, China, providing end-to-end CDMO solutions for ATMPs. We offer services from cell banking, process, and analytical method development, cGMP production to fill & finish, covering different stages of drug development from early research, IITs, Investigational New Drug (IND) applications, clinical trials, New Drug Applications (NDA), to commercialization.

Porton Advanced has developed specialized CRO and CDMO platforms focusing on plasmids, viral vectors (lentiviral vector, adenoviral vector, AAV,etc), cell therapy CMC services including CAR-T, TCR-T, CAR-NK, HSC, exosome, etc) and nucleic acid therapies. Our state-of-the-art, GMP-compliant facilities span an impressive 215,000 sqft, equipped with 10 viral vector production lines, 12 GMP-compliant cell therapy production suites (including 2 suites for infectious donors), and a multitude of clean rooms. As of now, we have successfully supported our clients to secure 18 global IND approvals from NMPA, FDA, and Medsafe, with 5 ongoing Phase I/II ATMP projects. Additionally, Porton Advanced has supported the successful transition of several overseas clinical-stage pipelines into China.

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SOURCE Porton Advanced Solutions