ProBioGen Licenses Technology to Bayer
ProBioGen AG, a premier service and technology provider for complex therapeutic antibodies and glycoproteins, recently announced the closing of a license agreement with Bayer AG for the GlymaxX Technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Bayer will leverage the technology to further increase the potency of an undisclosed antibody candidate for oncological indications.
ProBioGen’s proven antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) enhancing technology GlymaxX® will be applied during cell line development.
“We are glad to add Bayer to our list of licensees,” says ProBioGen’s Chief Executive Officer Dr. Wieland Wolf. “The GlymaxX technology is clinically proven and is a very flexible technology which is liked by all cell lines.”
ProBioGen is a premier, Berlin-based specialist for developing and manufacturing complex therapeutic antibodies and glycoproteins. Combining both state-of-the-art development services, based on ProBioGen’s CHO.RiGHT expression and manufacturing platform, together with intelligent product-specific technologies yields biologics with optimized properties. Rapid and integrated cell line and process development, comprehensive analytical development and following reliable GMP manufacturing is performed by a highly skilled and experienced team. All services and technologies are embedded in a total quality management system to assure compliance with international ISO and GMP standards (EMA/FDA). ProBioGen was founded 1994, is privately owned, and located in Berlin, Germany.
The GlymaxX technology, developed by ProBioGen, prevents the cellular synthesis of the sugar “fucose” and hence, in antibody-producing cells, its addition to the N-linked carbohydrate part of the antibody. The absence of fucose is known to greatly enhance ADCC. The GlymaxX technology is based on the stable introduction of a gene for an enzyme which blocks the producer cells’ fucose biosynthesis pathway. As a unique feature, differentiating it from other approaches, GlymaxX can be applied to both novel or already existing antibody producer cell lines, and entire antibody expression and discovery platforms, without negatively affecting their productivity or other product characteristics.
Furthermore, a single GlymaxX cell line can be flexibly used to produce differently fucosylated products, depending on the upstream process: In fucose-free medium the antibody is quantitatively afucosylated. The same GlymaxX cell line grown in fucose-containing medium however, uses the provided fucose and produces fully fucosylated antibody. Thus, a GlymaxX cell line can by employed to produce different products: For instance ADCC-enhanced GlymaxX® antibodies or wildtype-like, fully fucosylated mAbs, for a parallel Antibody-Drug-Conjugate (ADC) project.
Finally, GlymaxX has been used by biosimilar-developing companies to adjust a specific content of fucose in order to match the originators glycoprofile. Overall, GlymaxX is simple, rapid, potent, and universally applicable to different CHO hosts and all other eukaryotic cell species. ProBioGen offers its GlymaxX technology royalty-free and non-exclusively as a service or as an individual license.
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