BeiGene to use SAFC CHOZN platform for commercial drug development
Aims to shorten bioproduction times in early development of its targeted oncology drug
SAFC Commercial, the custom manufacturing services business unit of Sigma-Aldrich, has entered a commercial sales and service contract with biopharmaceutical company, BeiGene.
Located in Beijing, China, BeiGene purchased SAFC’s off-the-shelf, turnkey CHOZN cell line production platform and cell line engineering services to support discovery and commercial development of its targeted oncology drug.
Kang Li, Head of Biologics from BeiGene, said the CHOZN platform offers the ability to maximise the production of monoclonal antibodies and other recombinant-proteins used in its oncology treatments.
'Our objective in selecting SAFC’s CHOZN platform and services was to shorten bioproduction times in early development and to obtain a manufacturing clone quickly with the highest protein quality specifications.'
Kevin Gutshall, Global Senior Manager of the CHOZN platform for SAFC, said SAFC is seeing significant interest in using its CHOZN recombinant cell line development platforms in the Asian markets.
'The CHOZN platform supports efficient innovation and the highest quality therapeutics. It offers a turnkey solution that is unmatched in the industry. Users simply identify and clone the genes for their therapeutic protein of interest into the CHOZN expression vector, and then employ the traditional cell line development strategies of transfection, selection and cloning.'
The full CHOZN platform includes the CHOZN GS-/- CHO cell line and an optimised set of cGMP-produced and chemically defined media and feeds. In addition to the cell line, media, and feed, SAFC provides extensive user support, which includes working with customers on protocols – from transfection through to scale-up in bioreactors, as well as comprehensive cell-line safety testing and development history.
