Eli Lilly and Company has announced plans for a $4.5 billion (£3.6 billion) facility that integrates pharmaceutical research and manufacturing. The Lilly Medicine Foundry, revealed on 2 October 2024, will aim to streamline drug discovery and production processes. This approach could significantly accelerate the journey from drug development through clinical trials to manufacturing.
Berlin-based ProBioGen AG has signed a commercial multi-product license agreement with Sanofi. Under the agreement, Sanofi will integrate ProBioGen’s proprietary GlymaxX technology into their product development strategy for an undisclosed number of antibody candidates across several business units.
GlymaxX enables a boost of antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), consequently leading to an elevated NK cell mediated killing activity of its target cells. The GlymaxX technology adds value to the products by significantly improving their potency and potentially reducing the overall clinical doses for patients.
The GlymaxX technology for production of afucosylated proteins is widely applied in the pharma industry and hence used in various numbers of mAb candidates. It is universally applicable, simple and very potent.
The unique advantage of the GlymaxX technology allows a single GlymaxX modified cell line to produce both, completely fucosylated and/or afucosylated antibodies and those with intermediate defined fuscosylation levels.
The technology can be easily integrated in newly developed or already existing cell lines of different host cell origins, which demonstrates its great flexibility.
ProBioGen is a premier CDMO for developing and manufacturing complex therapeutic glycoproteins. The GlymaxX technology, developed by ProBioGen, prevents the addition of the sugar “fucose” to the N-linked antibody carbohydrate part by antibody producing cells. The absence of fucose enhances ADCC (antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity) activity for antibodies directed against cancer and infectious diseases. The GlymaxX technology is based on the stable introduction of a gene for an enzyme which deflects the cellular pathway of fucose biosynthesis. ProBioGen offers this technology royalty-free to third parties.
AMSBIO, in association with Nordmark Biochemicals, is now offering animal-free Collagenase and Neutral Protease enzymes, isolated from Clostridium histolyticum, for in-vitro tissue dissociation leading to high yields of viable cells.
Being animal-free, these enzymes are very safe and offer reduced regulatory hurdles for use in clinical applications. They are manufactured under GMP guidelines using a plant-based production process that guarantees no risk of cross-contamination with animal-derived materials. These top-quality enzymes can be used on a wide range of cell/tissue types and are supported with specific protocols available based on each application.
Highly consistent, top quality Collagenase and Neutral Protease are essential tissue dissociation enzymes for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. In addition to the animal-free enzymes, this product portfolio includes a comprehensive range of Collagenase and Neutral Protease enzymes manufactured under GMP guidelines with certified TSE safety and virus validation studies carried out for each batch. The high level of quality control involved in the production of these enzymes means that they have reliable lot-to-lot consistency with accurate analysis of proteolytic enzyme activities.
AMSBIO also offers research grade Collagenase and Neutral Protease enzymes. These research grade enzymes are available with a wide range of enzymatic activities, from standard collagenases, offering balanced amounts of other proteolytic activities, to highly purified collagenases. As each application requires different digestion conditions, this large range of Collagenase NB products offers optimal digestion conditions for a wide variety of tissue types.
To help you find the right enzyme and specific protocol best suited to your choice of cells and tissues, and thereby ensure consistent optimized results, AMSBIO has established an online resource at: https://www.amsbio.com/collagenase-nb-and-neutral-protease/.
Porvair Sciences’ Ultravap Levante nitrogen blowdown sample evaporator
Porvair Sciences has launched its new generation Ultravap Levante nitrogen blowdown sample evaporator.
The second generation system offers the many benefits associated with Porvair’s flagship evaporator, the Ultravap Mistral, in an affordable, easy-to-use package. This state-of-the-art single microplate evaporator is designed to meet the current needs of most chromatography laboratories whilst providing the future option of fully automating sample dry-down in applications such as LC/MS analysis, dry recovery or reconstitution.
The compact, standalone Ultravap Levante is fully programmable and easy to control from a robot liquid handler. Its advanced head technology enables delivery of evaporation temperatures up to 80°C for faster solvent evaporation rates. If required the system has the option to be fitted with ducted fan fume extraction.
Operated via an intuitive graphical colour LED touchscreen, software features includes up to 5 stored alphanumerically named programs and multi-step evaporation programs. This functionality combined with real-time run displays showing actual gas temperature, gas flow rate and stage height means the Ultravap Levante puts you in full control of the evaporation process. A removable acrylic splash guard safeguards the operator and also ensures efficient removal of the solvent vapour from the evaporation table.
The Ultravap Levante is supplied with an evaporator head of your choice, which may be interchanged quickly and easily with a head of a different pattern as your workflow demands.
The precision engineered mechanism uses a standard ANSI/SLAS plate nest to accept most microplate formats and tube racks. It can accommodate tubes up to 50 mm in height in a variety of configurations to allow the use of 2 Dram vials, 1.5 ml HPLC vials, bar-coded tubes in racks and many other common formats. Evaporator heads are available for efficient dry down of 24-, 48-, 96- and 384-well microplates at temperatures up to 80°C
The Ultravap Levante can be operated from both a gas cylinder and an in-house supply of nitrogen or clean dry air. The blow-down evaporation technique is well proven for efficiently removing chromatography solvents such as dichloromethane, acetonitrile, methanol and hexane.
Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden have developed Artificial Intelligence that is capable of generating novel, functionally active proteins. The research represents a significant breakthrough in the field of synthetic protein development.
“What we are now able to demonstrate offers fantastic potential for a number of future applications, such as faster and more cost-efficient development of protein-based drugs,” said Aleksej Zelezniak, Associate Professor at the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering at Chalmers.
Martin Engqvist, Assistant Professor, also of the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, who was involved in designing the experiments to test the AI synthesised proteins, commented on the development, saying that “accelerating the rate at which we engineer proteins is very important for driving down development costs for enzyme catalysts. This is the key for realising environmentally sustainable industrial processes and consumer products, and our AI model, as well as future models, will enable that. Our work is a vital contribution in that context.”
Protein-based drugs are very common – the diabetes drug insulin is one of the most prescribed. Some of the most expensive and effective cancer medicines are also protein-based, as well as the antibody formulas currently being used to treat COVID-19.
Current methods used for protein engineering rely on introducing random mutations to protein sequences. However, with each additional random mutation introduced, the protein activity declines.
“Consequently, one must perform multiple rounds of very expensive and time-consuming experiments, screening millions of variants, to engineer proteins and enzymes that end up being significantly different from those found in nature,” explained Zelezniak, who lead the research.
“This engineering process is very slow, but now we have an AI-based method where we can go from computer design to working protein in just a few weeks.”
The researchers recently published their findings in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.
The AI-based approach is called ProteinGAN and uses a generative deep learning approach.
In essence, the AI is provided with a large amount of data from well-studied proteins; it studies this data and attempts to create new proteins based on it. At the same time, another part of the AI tries to figure out if the synthetic proteins are fake or not. The proteins are sent back and forth in the system until the AI can no longer not tell apart natural and synthetic proteins. This method is well known for creating photos and videos of fictitious people, but in this study, it was used for producing highly diverse protein variants with naturalistic-like physical properties that could be tested for their functions.
The proteins widely used in everyday products are not always entirely natural but are made through synthetic biology and protein engineering techniques. Using these techniques, the original protein sequences are modified in the hope of creating synthetic novel protein variants that are more efficient, stable, and tailored towards particular applications. The new AI-based approach is of importance for developing efficient industrial enzymes as well as new protein-based therapies, such as antibodies and vaccines.
The next step for the researchers is to explore how the technology could be used for specific improvements to protein properties, such as increased stability, something which could have great benefit for proteins used in industrial technology.
Reference:
“Expanding functional protein sequence spaces using generative adversarial networks” in Nature Machine Intelligence.
Lonza has expanded its renowned human primary cell offerings with the launch of fully customizable, high-quality cryopreserved Leukopaks. The frozen Leukopaks will enable long-distance shipping of leukapheresis products without the concern of reduced cell viability encountered with fresh Leukopaks. Being suitable for long-term storage in research labs, the cryopreserved Leukopaks will also allow immediate access to viable cells for greater convenience and workflow flexibility.
The cryopreserved Leukopaks come in a range of sizes, and multiple donor characteristics and testing options are available through a unique costing structure that allows customers to only pay for the customization that they need.
A Leukopak is an enriched leukapheresis-derived product containing high concentrations of peripheral blood mononuclear cells like T cells, B cells and monocytes. Such cells are a critical raw material in immunotherapy research and for optimizing cell therapy process development before progressing to full clinical manufacture. However, fresh Leukopaks can be hard to access and must be used rapidly to avoid cell degradation. International transportation options are thus severely limited, and logistical delays or donor cancellations can have catastrophic impacts on research costs and quality.
Cryopreserved Leukopaks allow reliable global shipping while maintaining cell viability and functionality, and the ability to thaw cryopreserved Leukopaks when needed means researchers are better able to plan ahead for more cost-efficient therapy development.
Lonza’s cryopreserved Leukopaks are available in a range of sizes, including packs of 2.5, 5 and 9.5 billion cells, which can be subdivided into separate smaller bags for greater convenience. Specific donor characteristics like age, gender and Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) type are also available, with a wide range of recallable donors and several product testing options.
Customization follows a unique, tailored pricing structure, where customers only pay for the customization they require. Customers will also have access to Lonza’s globally renowned technical support services to facilitate optimized product usage and greater research success.
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