Thursday, February 27, 2020 Daily Archives

Improving Bioprocess Expression Systems: A Clean Alternative to CRISPR/Cas9

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Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells have emerged as a robust platform for bioprocessing serving both early and late-stage biotherapeutic drug supply. However, these cells and other hosts (e.g., HEK293), can be optimized for even greater potential through advanced gene editing. For example, when the endogenous glutamine synthetase (GS) gene is knocked out in CHO cells, a sixfold increase in high-producing cell lines is achieved (1). In another study, CHO with annexin A2 (ANXA2) and cathepsin gene (CTSD) knockouts were introduced…

February 27, 2020

eBook: Sensor Technologies — Essential Tools for Bioprocessing 4.0

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Sensors are essential devices that can be used for most, if not all, typical biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing processes to monitor fundamental process parameters such as flow, temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen throughout all process stages. As the bioindustry progresses toward automation, digitalization, and other “Manufacturing 4.0” concepts, robust single-use and smart sensors for bioprocess monitoring will be needed. Read this BPI eBook to garner valuable perspectives on both of these types of sensors. Discussions herein focus on smart sensor…

February 27, 2020

Halozyme eyes major drivers in Roche and Janssen subcutaneous approvals

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Potential upcoming approvals and launches of subcutaneous formulations of monoclonal antibodies could prove a boon for Halozyme, which licenses its Enhanze technology to Janssen and Roche, among others. In 2019, Halozyme Therapeutics announced its pancreatic cancer drug candidate PEGPH20 did not meet a Phase 3 study’s main goal of improving how long patients lived. As such, the firm laid plans to restructure, ending its R&D oncology operations in favor of growing its formulation platform offering, Enhanze. The technology consists of…

February 27, 2020

Transcenta claims perfusion-based mAb production ‘milestone’

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Transcenta says efforts to intensify perfusion-based mAb production platform should give it competitive edge. It made the claim last week, also announcing that tweaks to its perfusion platform allowed it to increase productivity to greater than 4 g/L per day for multiple cell lines. Such intensification is key to Transcenta’s competitive strategy according to CEO Xueming Qian, who citied demand for sustainable supply of lower cost, higher quality medicines as key. “With drug pricing and affordability at the top of…

February 27, 2020