KBio will focus on accelerating the research, development, and production of new treatments for rare and infectious diseases using tobacco plants.
British American Tobacco (BAT) launched KBio Holdings Limited (KBio), a biotech incorporating BAT’s plant-based technology capabilities and Kentucky BioProcessing Inc (KBP), BAT’s wholly owned US plant biologics subsidiary. KBio will focus on accelerating the research, development, and production of new treatments for rare and infectious diseases using tobacco plants, realizing and expanding the potential of both its plant-based technology platform as well as its existing clinical and pre-clinical vaccines and antibody pipeline.
The new company will explore new opportunities to develop its plant-based production system, which has the potential to offer greater speed, scale-up opportunity, and thermostability. It will also look to form innovative r&d collaborations and financing aimed at expanding its pipeline and future portfolio, with an ambition of financial self-sufficiency.
Supporting the company’s future plans, a standalone operational structure for KBio is being established. This includes building a new executive leadership team led by Patrick Doyle as c.e.o. Doyle brings more than 20 years of experience leading innovative biotech companies.
“I am excited by the opportunity to build on the significant accomplishments made by BAT and KBP,” said Doyle. “I am confident in the potential of KBio’s powerful plant-based platform, capabilities and emerging early-stage pipeline. To-date, the technology has demonstrated its ability to produce novel antibody and vaccine candidates with high purity at a fraction of the time and cost of current technologies. The speed and efficiency demonstrated by the KBio platform has significant potential. This could enable us to progress to clinical studies faster than industry norms, in the hope of delivering treatment solutions more quickly.”
Dr. David O’Reilly, BAT’s director of scientific research, said, “Science and innovation are fundamental to BAT and delivering on our purpose of building A Better Tomorrow. We recognize the potential of our innovative plant-based technology and have established KBio to maximize that potential. We are excited to see what the future holds.”