Ginkgo snares $18M contract from US government to research complex protein production
19 Jul 2023
PROTACs
Preview
Source: FiercePharma
Ginkgo Bioworks signed on to work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to research the manufacturing of complex therapeutic proteins.
Ginkgo Bioworks, which has developed a platform for cell programming and biosecurity, has entered a contract valued at up to $18 million with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Under the deal, the company will research the manufacturing of complex therapeutic proteins.
As part of the federal agency’s Reimagining Protein Manufacturing project, Ginkgo aims to leverage its cell-free protein synthesis technology to advance fast, high-yield production of human therapeutic proteins, the company said in a July 19 press release.
“There is growing recognition that pharmaceutical supply chains are at risk,” Jason Kelly, co-founder and chief executive of Ginkgo, said in the release. “One way to meet this challenge is distributed manufacturing at the point of care. Imagine a future where drugs, including complex biologics, are produced locally or in a widely distributed manner on-demand.”
Therapeutic proteins with “post-translational modifications” such as antibodies, cytokines and clotting factors are important both to the biopharma marketplace and to DARPA. Currently, about half of the top-selling drugs used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases contain such therapeutic proteins.
Those same drugs are also used to treat or prevent disease, injury or death related to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear threats.
Also working on the team with Ginkgo are researchers from Imperial College London including Paul Freemont of Nature’s Toolbox, Alex Koglin and consultant Michael Feldhaus, who is a former executive vice president of antibody discovery at Adimab.
In early June, Ginkgo announced a collaboration with Novo Nordisk to create novel expression hosts for pharmaceutical products. Financial terms of that collaboration weren’t disclosed.
For more details,please visit the original website
The content of the article does not represent any opinions of Synapse and its affiliated companies. If there is any copyright infringement or error, please contact us, and we will deal with it within 24 hours.
Indications
Targets
-Hot reports
Get started for free today!
Accelerate Strategic R&D decision making with Synapse, PatSnap’s AI-powered Connected Innovation Intelligence Platform Built for Life Sciences Professionals.
Start your data trial now!
Synapse data is also accessible to external entities via APIs or data packages. Leverages most recent intelligence information, enabling fullest potential.