Novozymes Wins Innovation Award for Ground-Breaking Half-Life Extension Platform

Novozymes Biopharma, part of Novozymes A/S, recently announced it has received the 2012 Drug Delivery Partnerships (DDP) Technology Innovation award for the company’s half-life extension platform. The award recognizes the most exciting delivery technology of the year. The albumin-based technology platform offers the potential to enhance patient quality of life through tailoring drug circulatory half-life to meet specific medical needs. The DDP awards acknowledge success within the drug delivery industry and were selected by peers from the pharmaceutical industry at the 16^th annual DDP conference, held in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 2012. The award was collected by Dr. Darrell Sleep, Head of Research and Development, UK.

“Novozymes is delighted to have won the DDP technology innovation award,” said Dave Mead, Business Development Director, Novozymes Biopharma. “The albumin-based technology is adaptable and can be used for both genetic fusion (Albufuse Flex) or conjugation (Recombumin Flex), providing a unique ability to decrease or increase a drug’s half-life. Clearly this will help manufacturers to develop pharmaceuticals with enhanced pharmacokinetic properties, offering more favorable dosing regimes and improving patient compliance, while reducing healthcare costs. For the solution to be recognized as the most exciting delivery technology of the past year, at one of the pharmaceutical industry’s largest drug delivery conferences, is a real testament to its potential importance to the market.”

Lack of patient adherence to prescribed medications poses a tremendous challenge to the global healthcare community. The main reasons cited for poor compliance include patients’ forgetfulness and factors, such as the route of administration. To overcome these issues, the technology exploits the natural interaction between albumin and the neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn). In collaboration with the University of Oslo, specific albumin variants have been designed with altered binding affinities for the receptor, making it possible to modulate the serum half-life of an albumin molecule. By coupling a drug to these variants through genetic fusion or chemical conjugation, the technology confers the extended or reduced circulatory half-life onto the drug molecule.

The efficacy of biological drugs is often compromised due to short circulation time in the body. In parallel, many small molecule drugs are associated with toxicity issues due to non-specificity. This exciting half-life extension technology enables drug manufacturers to design new efficacious products, or life-cycle manage existing drugs, with longer serum half-life, reduced toxicity, and improved pharmacokinetic profiles. As a result, the frequency of injections a patient receives or even the amount of drug delivered can be reduced.

Novozymes is a world leader in bioinnovation. Together with customers across a broad array of industries, the company creates tomorrow’s industrial biosolutions, improving customers’ business and the use of our planet’s resources. With over 700 products used in 130 countries, Novozymes’ bioinnovations improve industrial performance and safeguard the world’s resources by offering superior and sustainable solutions for tomorrow’s ever-changing marketplace.