PEPTIDES & PROTEINS
New investments in peptide technology, manufacturing and business
This article reviews some of the latest investments in the peptide and proteins field, including new technology developments, investments in manufacturing capabilities and collaborations in new peptide therapeutic programmes.
T
he peptides and proteins sector is continuing to attract increased investment and is currently growing at a CAGR of about 17 per cent due to the high specificity and efficacy of peptide- and protein-based therapeutics. Contract manufacturers, technology providers, drug discovery companies and pharma and biotech companies are expanding their activities in the sector. The following describes some of the major investments made in technologies, manufacturing facilities and peptide and protein drug development this year.
Isogenica expands discovery capacity
In July, peptide and protein engineering specialist Isogenica announced the opening of a new automation facility at its Chesterford Research Park location in the UK. Following a substantial refit of additionally acquired space, the new facility will house the company’s high throughput CIS display platform for the discovery of biological therapeutics, diagnostics and reagents using Tecan liquid handling robots and screening equipment. The company says this development brings to it additional capacity for the selection of next- generation molecules for biopharmaceutical projects with a capacity of up to 200 selections per week.
The first half of 2011 has seen Isogenica establish a number of new collaborative projects. In March the company announced details of a service agreement with Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development to carry out discovery work with the Centyrin scaffold. In June the company formed an agreement with Biolauncher, a specialist in the provision of services to growing life science businesses, and Cresset Biomolecular Discovery, a developer of specialist software for calculating and comparing the molecular field characteristics of chemical compounds. This alliance aims to develop an innovative end-to-end small- molecule discovery platform by integrating the
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expertise in peptide library design, evolutionary screening, next-generation sequencing, structural analytics, and molecular field-based computational chemistry to identify active compounds against high- value therapeutic targets.
In addition to strategic alliances, Isogenica also expanded its business development and customer support operations into North America in March. The new business development and customer support team is based in Alameda, California and provides direct support to Isogenica’s existing and prospective customers in the USA and Canada.
Quotient Bioresearch and CRB strategic alliance
In June, Quotient Bioresearch, a provider of early-stage and specialist drug development services, signed a strategic partnership agreement with Cambridge Research Biochemicals (CRB) to provide a joint consultancy solution for tritium peptide labelling.
The companies are working together to supply both tritium radiolabelled and cold peptides as a package in a single shipment. Cambridge Research Biochemicals has been supplying cold peptides for more than 30 years and Quotient has been radiolabelling peptides with tritium for more than 60 years. The companies say the new service will mean a more streamlined offering to customers with one contract and simpler pricing. Peptides that have been site-specifically labelled with tritium are suited for use in
receptor studies. Tritium labelling does not change the chemical structure of the peptide, producing labelled ligands with chemical and biological properties identical to those of the unlabelled molecule.
In another recent development, CRB has invested in its peptide manufacturing capacity with the first European installation of an Overture™ Robotic Peptide Library Synthesizer. The company says Overture enables it to offer its customers a much faster, more flexible service in drug discovery and development, as the technology can identify the epitopes that cause immune systems to react and that may be the key to developing new treatments.
Lonza antibody-drug conjugate manufacturing agreement
Lonza has announced a new development and manufacturing agreement with Genmab A/S. The agreement secures a development and cGMP manufacturing plan for Genmab to produce a novel antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) product targeting tissue factor (TF), a protein involved in tumour signalling and angiogenesis that is highly expressed on
The Lonza Biologics plc facility in Slough, UK: initiating process development and cGMP manufacturing of a new antibody-drug conjugate. (Photo ©Lonza Ltd)
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