From the first commercially approved Lentiviral therapy to Covid-19 vaccines, OXB is proud to celebrate 30 years of excellence
What does it mean to be a true industry pioneer? For world-leading viral vector specialist, OXB, such pioneership is defined by relentless innovation and groundbreaking impact. Founded in 1995 and spun out from Oxford University, England, OXB’s mission was clear: to develop products that leveraged its extensive expertise in its Lentiviral vector platform – “to make cell and gene therapy a universally accessible clinical option” for all. Driven by passion, tenacity, and scientific excellence, OXB had soon surpassed this vision, treating the first ever patient in-vivo with a lentiviral vector – a landmark breakthrough that revolutionized the biomedical industry forever.
Following that triumph, OXB remained at the forefront of industry excellence. When the pandemic struck in 2020, the company seized the opportunity to partner with AstraZeneca for large-scale commercial manufacture of the Covid-19 vaccine, subsequently producing over 100 million doses. This success further strengthened OXB’s reputation as a leading expert in viral vector development and manufacturing, and, two years later, saw it transform into an international organization. The company soon acquired a site in Bedford, Massachusetts, to focus on AAV development, and then an additional two sites in Lyon and Strasbourg, France. Not only did these global facilities augment OXB’s global presence, but also expanded its expertise in other viral vectors, further driving its goal to be vector-agnostic in supporting all its clients’ needs, from its established LentiVectorTM Platform to its InAAVateTM (AAV) Platform and beyond.
As a result, the company made a strategic shift from being a development company to operating as a full CDMO and, in turn, rebranded from its original name –
Oxford Biomedica – to OXB. Now, having successfully rebranded and distinguished itself as a global viral vector CDMO powerhouse in cell and gene therapy, OXB is embracing its new integrated brand identity and scaling its operations to new heights. As the company proceeds to grow and prosper, it remains focused on its international expansion, particularly in the US, as it continues to be a strategic partner of choice for some of the world’s greatest pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Mark Caswell, Site Head of UK Operations at OXB, joins Manufacturing Today to dive deeper into the company’s strategic growth and the factors driving its operations. He begins our conversation by sharing insight into the acquisition of OXB’s two French sites back in 2024 and how they further expanded the company’s GMP manufacturing capabilities in Europe.
“The acquisition of these two sites was focused around supplying the European markets amidst all the Brexit changes coming into effect. Additionally, the existing expertise that these sites held in terms of other viral vectors further supported a vector-agnostic approach,” he explains. “They’ve also given us the unique ability to scale commercial production, unlocking continued growth and new opportunities for us in France.”
Moving on to OXB’s US expansion, Mark shares an exciting development: “We’ve recently purchased a second facility in the US to further expand our commercial footprint and support our clients. A lot of our clients are based in the US, and so we wanted to address some of their concerns surrounding tariffs and being able to manufacture in their own market. The new US facility is one of the ways that we’ve been able to give our clients some relative assurance alongside growing our commercial footprint there as our client base grows. Our Bedford site can produce pre-clinical, phase I and Phase II material for clinical trials, but we just lacked that commercial production capability because of the rigor associated with commercial versus clinical activities that the site wasn’t yet set up for. As we looked to bring that capability to the US, it made good economic sense to purchase a facility that was already FDA approved and could facilitate clients’ speed to commercialization much faster.”
The new site in reference is in Durham, North Carolina and, in conjunction with OXB’s Bedford site, takes the company’s square footage in the country to a combined 217,000, with Bedford now focused on process development and Durham focused on GMP Manufacturing. The new Durham facility encompasses two state-of-the-art vector substance suites, and one vector product suite, with a further expansion-ready GMP suite. This expansion is representative of OXB’s continued investment in both its clients and its overall operational efficiency, allowing the organization to provide a greater scope of end-to-end viral vector capabilities and deliver more flexible solutions worldwide.
“From an R&D perspective, we are a quality and innovation-led company. We’re really focused on what our clients are really looking for and how we can produce a quality vector in a quality format. We have our own innovation department within the organization that focuses solely on cutting-edge technology and applying it internally for different endpoints, evaluating how we can make our process more robust and streamlined and boost our productivity,” Mark elucidates.
“From that perspective, we look at various parts across the industry to see what we can leverage, whilst also attending several industry conferences where we can see what technologies exist out there, not merely equipment but also in AI and other software platforms. We’re looking to bring further automation into our manufacturing operations; that will facilitate real-time data acquisition for our clients to allow them to do more continuous process verification and ensure that their product performs as they expect it to.”
By championing a collaborative and data-driven approach, OXB can leverage its technical expertise and 30+ years of analytical data to ensure that its clients are able to take their products from clinical manufacturing to commercial production, whilst adhering to regulatory demands. From the initial construct and plasmid design to process development, cGMP manufacturing, CMC support, and automated and semi-automated fill finishes, OXB is proud to provide a fully integrated scope of services that offer its clients a competitive advantage.
“One of our key advantages, especially in our viral vector platforms, is that we have over 30 years of experience that our clients can leverage, not only in the data that we have for our platforms but also in regulatory experience. We’re now utilizing that platform data to support future clients’ progress; by taking both a scientific and risk-based approach to our client programs, we can accelerate their time to market and decrease their need to invest in additional operations,” Mark says.
“Because we are an international company, we’re able to leverage expertise across the board. Our goal is to be vector-agnostic across the organization’s global sites, and we have Centers of Excellence across our geographies; the UK is our Center of Excellence for Lenti, the US for AAV, and then France for many of the other vectors we work with. We can do development work for Lenti in all three of our geographies, and will expand this model for other vectors, which means that we’re able to support clients with fast-track programs.”
As gene and cell therapy treatments continue to boom across the biomedical sector, OXB’s work on viral vector platforms remains more important than ever. By maintaining its focus on innovation, quality excellence, and client centricity, the company will continue to champion its high standards of safety, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and quality, both presently and in the decades to come.
“Following the recent acquisition of our new site in Durham, North Carolina, a key priority for us is to continue our focus on integration, getting all parts of the site aligned with the OXB ways of working. We want our different vectors to be implemented across the organization so that our clients have complete flexibility to choose where they would like their products to be manufactured,” Mark reveals, optimistic for OXB’s future ahead. “In the next five years, I see the company being the world-leading viral vector CDMO, and we are now very well positioned to capitalize on the wave of expected cell and gene therapy approvals, with our scalable, state-of-the-art facilities that will allow us to continue to expand across our sites and meet growing client demands. Having a dedicated team that focuses on nothing but innovation speaks to our commitment to deliver best-in-class solutions to our clients, and we strive to stay at the pinnacle of the market as we move into the future.”
As OXB moves forward to build upon its existing legacy, Mark takes a moment to home in on OXB’s greatest asset: its incredible team.
“One of the key driving forces behind our success is the values that we live everyday: Responsible, Responsive, Resilient, and Respect,” he affirms. “Earlier in 2025, I had the opportunity to receive the 2025 CDMO Leadership Award as the top cell and gene therapy CDMO in Europe. We were selected based on the number of votes that we received from across the industry – what better way to say that you’re one of the best in the industry than receiving an unbiased award like that.
“We have phenomenal people here at OXB. At the end of the day, every company can have the same equipment that we have, but it’s truly the people who stand out,” Mark concludes. “They work day-in and day-out to deliver these life changing therapies to our clients in support of their patients; they are the true heroes of what we do.”