Boehringer Ingelheim has entered into a non-exclusive technology and commercial license option agreement with BaroFold. Under the terms of the agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim will license BaroFold's pressure-enabled manufacturing technology (PreEMT). A laboratory-scale reactor of the PreEMT high-pressure protein-refolding technology will be installed at Boehringer Ingelheim's microbial facility in Vienna, Austria. The technology will be used for the development of biopharmaceutical production processes.

PreEMT uses high pressure to disaggregate and control the refolding of recombinant proteins to their native structures at yields and efficiencies that cannot be achieved with existing technologies. PreEMT can substantially reduce the cost of manufacturing because of its increased yield and throughput at high protein concentrations. The technology is readily scalable and has been used for the cGMP production of clinical materials for Phase I to Phase III trials.

Georg Klima, executive director of Process Science Austria at Boehringer Ingelheim, said in a press statement, "This collaboration builds upon the exciting work we have completed with BaroFold over the last 18 months and enhances our strategy to integrate the most innovative technologies for biologic manufacturing. We will be able to leverage BaroFold's high pressure refold technology on a variety of proteins under development at our facility in Vienna."