- This partnership will give the industry new, more efficient options for E. coli-expressed products across many indications of drug development.
- Cytovance’s expansion of E. coli technologies and strains enables them to meet customers’ needs for a one-of-a-kind approach to executing technical microbial projects.
- International deal allows Vectron to bring its technology to the North American Market and expand its global partnership network.
OKLAHOMA CITY & TRONDHEIM, Norway—October 10, 2023—Cytovance Biologics announced today a strategic, international collaboration with Vectron Biosolutions to add customized E. coli strain development to the CDMO’s microbial program.
“As one of North America’s leading microbial manufacturing service providers, we are very excited to collaborate with the team at Vectron Biosolutions! Their extensive expertise in gene expression for industrial protein production and our shared cultures of ingenuity, make them an excellent partner to support our customers looking to overcome large molecule obstacles and reach their clinical and commercial milestones,” said Cytovance CCO, Axel Schleyer.
E. coli has rapidly gained a reputation for being a fast and cost-effective option for expressing complex molecules, but not all proteins are the same. As an increasing number of promising novel drug targets are discovered, many difficult-to-express and harder-to-produce compounds are reaching and subsequently failing in the development phase, demanding a new generation of unique microbial manufacturing solutions.
At the head of providing new solutions for complex customer projects is Cytovance’s Senior Director of Research and Development, Stephanie Wickham, Ph.D., “Due to the complexities of drug discovery, our customers have already invested countless hours and resources into their compound by the time we have a kick-off call. As a trusted CDMO partner, expanding our toolbox of available strains to include those specifically engineered to address the complexities of their large molecule and accommodate the challenges of long-term scale-up to one of our 1000L fermenters, is a natural next step for our program.”
Leveraging Vectron’s solutions Cytovance will be able to offer customers planning to express in E. coli higher titers, with reduced downstream costs and processing time using Vectron’s unique vector engineering expression and secretion technology platforms, and the full documentation of development work needed for regulatory approval. Altogether, this will simplify and accelerate drug development efforts, propelling new products from concept to commercialization and on to patients in need.
This partnership will serve as one of Vectron’s first expansions of business into the United States, following the company’s acquisition of T3S Technologies’ secretion platform in 2021. Vectron CEO and Co-founder, Trond Erik Vee Aune is looking forward to this extension of the company’s global partnership network and shared that, “We are very excited to partner with Cytovance Biologics to bring Vectron’s superior strain development services to customers in the USA. Cytovance’s position as a strong microbial CDMO is highly complementary to Vectron’s next-generation vector engineering technologies for microbial strain development, and together we will offer a complete package from gene to product, enabling customers to advance their proteins to the clinic and the market sooner and at lower cost.”
In addition, Vectron’s customers will have the option to seamlessly transition their expressed protein to downstream development with Cytovance, a trusted cGMP partner.
Dr. Schleyer will represent Cytovance at CPHI in Barcelona this October. If you are interested in scheduling a meeting to discuss your custom biomanufacturing needs, please visit https://info.cytovance.com/en-us/cphi2023.
About Cytovance Biologics:
Cytovance® Biologics is a leading biopharmaceutical Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) offering ingenuity and integrated development services to support large molecule biologics throughout the journey from R&D to regulatory approval. These services include mammalian cell line development, cell banking, microbial strain development, process and analytical development, process characterization, and cGMP manufacturing. The company’s 140,000+ sq. ft. state-of-the-art facilities in America’s Heartland are designed to meet US, EU, and global regulatory requirements.
Find out more at https://cytovance.com
About Vectron Biosolutions:
Vectron Biosolutions is a leading strain development service provider leveraging its proprietary, next-generation expression technologies and extensive experience to engineer bespoke bacterial strains for each and every customer protein. Providing unique solutions to unique problems is how Vectron approaches protein production challenges. The strains result in optimal maximal titers of biologically active protein. Vectron’s proprietary technologies, in-house expertise and decades of experience enable robust protein production and scalability otherwise not possible.
Find out more at https://www.vectronbiosolutions.com.