Artelis and Selexis report record antibody production levels in CHO cells of over 31 grams per liter
Brussels, Belgium and Geneva, Switzerland, September 02, 2008
Artelis SA and Selexis SA announced today a new milestone in CHO based monoclonal antibody production with the achievement of manufacturing yields of over 31 grams per liter. This record level was accomplished by applying two highly innovative technologies: (1) a high-performance stable Selexis CHO production cell line rapidly generated by industry leading scientists at Selexis SA using their proprietary Selexis Genetic Elements™ and (2) the application of iCELLis™ scalable, disposable, high-cell-density technology developed by the innovative scientists at Artelis.
The full program was concluded over about 4 months, starting with the development of a high-performance cell line development at Selexis, followed by cell transfer and manufacturing at Artelis. The culture media used throughout the study was industry standard cGMP grade and void of serum or any animal derived components.
Dr. Igor Fisch, Co-founder and CEO of Selexis commented on the achievements:
“The productivity and stability of the Selexis high-performance cell lines are a perfect fit for the iCELLis™ technology, which has the ability to reach incredibly high-cell-densities of up to 250 mio cells per ml”. “The usefulness and potential applications of the combined approach could stretch across the biotech industry, beyond just large scale bioproduction”.
Dr. Jose Castillo, Co-founder and President of Artelis commented on the achievements:
“These results show the power of the iCELLis™ technology. When combined with a high-performance cell line, like one from Selexis’, we have the opportunity to reach ultra high productivity levels.” “We firmly believe the iCELLis™ system will change the approach companies take for the small and large scale production of recombinant proteins.”
Further details on this milestone achievement will be presented at the upcoming Bioprocess International Conference being held in Anaheim, California, September 23 – 26, 2008.
Artelis and Selexis plan to expand the testing of the combined technologies by evaluating the iCELLis™ platform with Selexis generated HEK293 cells lines.
About the Artelis iCELLis™ Technology:
iCELLis™ is a proprietary, single-use, technology developed by Artelis. iCELLis™ is designed to achieve and maintain high-cell densities on macrocarriers in a fixed-bed system. Achieving high-cell densities allows compact iCELLis™ bioreactors to equal the productivity of much larger stirred-tank units. Depending on cell type and process, iCELLis™ can achieve 20-100x the volumetric productivity of a stirred-tank bioreactor.
iCELLis™ represents the next generation of disposable bioreactor technology, enabling process intensification in upstream processing by reducing bioreactor scale and simplifying operations.
About Artelis:
Artelis is an international and innovative ℠E founded in 2005. Capitalised by an American company listed on NASDAQ, Artelis is the privileged partner of world-leading pharmaceutical groups. The company has broad experience with disposable technologies: Artelis developed the Newmix® Jet Drive™, disposable mixing system, and co-developed the Nucleo™ disposable bioreactor together with ATMI Lifesciences and Pierre Guerin Biolafitte. Artelis is concerned by the process intensification needs in the biotech industry and dedicated to process development in disposable technologies. Artelis’ mission is to create the future means of producing proteins, cells and viruses for key markets: monoclonal antibodies, cell therapy, vaccines and gene therapy. For more information, please visit www.artelis.be.
About the Selexis Genetic Elements™:
Selexis Genetic Elements™ are applied to control the dynamic organization of transgenes in the chromatin of eukaryotic production cells. The Selexis Genetic Elements™ enable the creation of loops of open chromatin upon the stable integration of the SGE containing vectors. Selexis Genetic Elements™ based vectors have been shown to significantly increase the population of independently transformed cells stably expressing the gene of interest at very high levels. Selexis Genetic Elements™ are available for out-license.
About Selexis SURE Cell Line Development℠ Program:
The Selexis SURE Cell Line Development℠ program is a novel cell line development procedure designed to maximize the effectiveness of the Selexis technology. Using the Selexis SURE Cell Line Development program, Selexis scientists can generate high-performance stable minipools in as little as 5 week following transfection or high-performance clonal cell lines 12 weeks after transfection. Like the Selexis Genetic Elements™ the Selexis SURE Cell Line Development Program is available for out-license.
About Selexis:
Selexis is a privately held biotechnology company dedicated to the development of innovative technologies and expert services to speed the development of high performance mammalian cell lines. The company's core intellectual property portfolio is based on the discovery and application of enabling genetic elements that control the dynamic organization of chromatin within all mammalian cells. Application of the Selexis Genetic Elements™ using the SURE Cell Line Development℠ process has enabled the rapid development of high performance cell lines for a number of pharmaceutically important programs.
Selexis Genetic Elements™ and SURE Cell Line Development℠ are trademarks of Selexis SA
iCELLis™ is a trademark of Artelis SA
For more information:
ARTELIS
Nicolas Vertommen
Marketing & Communication
+32 2 264 1877
n.vertommenATartelis.be
SELEXIS SA
Andrew F. Sandford
Vice President, Business Development and Licensing
(617) 595-5769
andrew.sanfordATselexis.com