Date: 2016-06-15
Type of information: Licensing agreement
Compound: GlymaxX® Antibody Glyco-Engineering technology
Company: ProBioGen (Germany) Thermo Fisher Scientific (USA - MA)
Therapeutic area: Technology - Services - Allergic diseases
Type agreement: licensing
Action mechanism: ADCC (Antibody-Dependent Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity) activity is an important antibody function leading to selectively killing target cells, i.e. cancer cells or pathogen-infected cells. ADCC enhancement has the potential to increase the therapeutic effect and/or to greatly reduce antibody dosage requirements, resulting in fewer side-effects and treatment costs. The absence of fucose enhances ADCC. The GlymaxX® technology, developed by ProBioGen, prevents the 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 eliminates the producer cells’ fucose biosynthesis pathway. GlymaxX® is universally applicable to different Chinese hamster ovary, or CHO, hosts and all other eukaryotic cell species. It can be applied in a few weeks to any existing antibody producer cell line, can be used in the context of ProBioGen’s pre-engineered GlymaxX® host cells, or can be introduced into entire animal cell expression platforms by modifying the host cell line. ProBioGen offers its GlymaxX® technology royalty-free as a service or as an individual license.
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Details: * On May 18th, 2016, ProBioGen, a leading specialist for contract development and manufacturing of complex glycoproteins and corresponding technologies, announced that Thermo Fisher Scientific has licensed its GlymaxX® technology for use in development of allergy diagnostics. ProBioGen’s CSO, Dr. Volker Sandig, comments: “Deviating from the typical GlymaxX® application of enhancing the cell-killing potency of CHO-derived therapeutic antibodies in cancer, GlymaxX® plays out its universal applicability in a radically different field. In this case, GlymaxX® acts to prevent the formation of cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants on recombinant proteins, expressed in insect cells, which would otherwise cause the detection of IgE antibodies of a certain kind with no clinical significance. Thus, this sophisticated technology serves to add to the specificity of the diagnostics test result.” Dr. Jon-Sverre Schanche, VP R&D for Thermo Fisher’s ImmunoDiagnostics business explains: “Our ImmunoCAP blood tests for allergen-specific IgE antibodies aid clinicians worldwide in their diagnoses of patients with allergy-like symptoms. The GlymaxX® technology will help us in our effort to develop diagnostic tests that deliver even greater clinical precision for the benefit of doctors and allergic patients worldwide.”
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