New Service Will Speed Library Screening Campaigns
Geneva, Switzerland (PRWEB) March 08, 2011 – Selexis SA, a Swiss-based biotechnology company with proprietary technology for the rapid development and engineering of high yield and stable mammalian cell lines for therapeutic protein manufacturing, announced today the launch of the Selexis SURE Variant Screening™ service. This service developed to support protein library screening campaigns, allows for the generation of stable cell pools expressing a range of protein variants (from several to > 100 variants) using the Selexis SUREtechnology Platform™ and the Selexis SURECHO-M Cell Line™.
Today, gene display libraries are powerful tools for identifying high-quality clinical protein therapeutic lead candidates; however, significant challenges remain for the full development of the lead candidates. When protein leads have been selected using phage, bacteria, yeast, or cell-free systems and are subsequently expressed in mammalian systems, incorrect protein folding, aggregation or aberrant posttranslational modifications can occur, resulting in a change or a loss of efficacy. Additionally, genes selected in these non-mammalian systems do not always express well in mammalian cell lines, such as Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. Selexis pioneered the SURE Variant Screening™ service to overcome many of these issues by developing an alternative screening paradigm that allows for earlier efficacy assessments of mammalian cell-produced potential clinical lead candidates, by stably expressing the lead molecules directly in CHO cells. This paradigm also eliminates the needs for transient expression platforms and allows for the rapid selection of a final manufacturing cell line.
“The Selexis SURE™ Variant Screening™ service is a valuable tool for improving the identification and development of novel protein therapeutics,” said Dr. Igor Fisch, CEO, Selexis SA. “The ability to early-on evaluate lead candidates expressed in CHO cells facilitates better decision-making, eliminates the need for transient transfection. Above all, it provides a direct indication of the future Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for a clinical candidate lead, by linking recombinant protein expression with activity. Furthermore, it enables R&D groups to save greater than 6 months in development time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs.”
Selexis’ SURE Variant Screening™ is part of Selexis’ commitment to developing new technologies and services that address the full range of clients’ development needs from discovery to manufacturing. In the future, Selexis intends to use the SURE Variant Screening™ technology to develop CHO cell-based gene display library screening.
About Selexis SURE Variant Screening™
Selexis’ SURE Variant Screening™ accelerates and improves outcomes in display library screening campaigns by reducing the number of steps and increasing the total productivity of the system. The SURE Variant Screening™ utilizes the proprietary Selexis SUREtechnology Platform™ and the Selexis SURECHO-M™ cell line to generate variant panels ranging from several to > 100 stably-expressing protein variant cell lines, with typical expression levels above 100 mg/L. These variant proteins, expressed with mammalian modifications, can be assessed for activity. Manufacturing cell lines of the top candidates can be readily isolated from the stable transfectants. The Selexis SURE Variant Screening™ applied to protein display screening campaigns: (i) determines the values of mammalian protein modifications early, (ii) weeds out candidates that cannot be easily expressed in mammalian cells, (iii) ensures a steady supply of preclinical material, (iv) promotes faster, more informed decision-making, (v) eliminates the need for transient transfection and (vi) significantly reduces development time (approximately 6 months) and costs (approximately $500,000).
