Bayer Licenses GlymaxX Antibody Technology from ProBioGen

On Sep 10, 2019, ProBioGen, a Germany-based contract development and manufacturing organization and technology provider for complex therapeutic antibodies and glycoproteins, announced the closing of a license agreement with Bayer for its GlymaxX technology. Under the agreement, Bayer will leverage the technology to further increase the potency of an undisclosed antibody candidate being developed for oncological indications. The technology will be applied during cell-line development for the antibody candidate.

The GlymaxX technology prevents the cellular synthesis of the sugar fucose and, hence, the addition of fucose to the N-linked carbohydrate part of an antibody in antibody-producing cells. The absence of fucose is known to greatly enhance antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), according to ProBioGen. The technology is based on the stable introduction of a gene for an enzyme that blocks the producer cells’ fucose biosynthesis pathway. As a unique feature, differentiating it from other approaches, GlymaxX can be applied to both novel or already existing antibody producer cell lines and entire antibody expression and discovery platforms without negatively affecting their productivity or other product characteristics.

In addition, a single GlymaxX cell line can be flexibly used to produce differently fucosylated products, depending on the upstream process; in fucose-free medium the antibody is quantitatively afucosylated. The same GlymaxX cell line grown in fucose-containing medium, however, uses the provided fucose and produces fully fucosylated antibody. Thus, a GlymaxX cell line can by employed to produce different products, such as ADCC-enhanced antibodies or wildtype-like, fully fucosylated monoclonal antibodies for a parallel antibody drug conjugate project.

GlymaxX has also been used by biosimilar-developing companies to adjust a specific content of fucose in order to match the originators glycoprofile. The technology is simple, rapid, potent, and universally applicable to different Chinese hamster ovary hosts and all other eukaryotic cell species, ProBioGen states.

“We are glad to add Bayer to our list of licensees,” said ProBioGen’s CEO, Dr. Wieland Wolf, in a company press release. “The GlymaxX technology is clinically proven and is a very flexible technology which is liked by all cell lines.”

Source: ProBioGen