Collaboration Develops More Efficacious Antibodies

Catalent Pharma Solutions and Zumutor Biologics, a developer of biosimilars, novel biobetters and new biological entities, have reported a successful research study, combining Catalent’s proprietary GPEx technology and Zumutor’s fucose knockout platform, to create new and more efficacious antibodies, according to an Aug. 2, 2016 press statement.

The companies, working at Zumutor’s research and development facility in Asia, created a fucose knockout GPEx cell line expressing high levels of an anti-HER2 antibody. The resulting modification completely removes fucose from the antibody, resulting in greatly enhanced antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) without impacting production levels, the companies report.

“Zumutor’s fucose knockout technology enables us to create new and more efficacious antibodies. The inherent stability of GPEx cell lines makes these modifications possible and allows GPEx cell lines to be modified quickly, to produce a more potent antibody,” said Kavitha Iyer, chief operating officer of Zumutor.

The GPEx technology platform creates stable, high-yielding mammalian cell lines for difficult-to-express proteins.

“The use of GPEx technology, in combination with Zumutor’s afucosylation platform, has shown exciting results, and has the potential to be applied to other antibodies that could benefit from ADCC enhancement as part of their development programs,” said Mike Riley, Vice President & General Manager of Catalent Biologics.

Source: Catalent Pharma Solutions