Cardinal Health Gains Patent for Gene Expression Technology

Cardinal Health (Somerset, NJ, www.cardinal.com) has been awarded its first patent for its innovative mammalian-cell genetic engineering technology. Titled, “Host Cells Containing Multiple Integrating Vectors,” the patent covers the company’s “GPEx” gene product expression technology platform, which enables rapid genetic engineering of stable mammalian cell lines to produce recombinant human proteins and antibodies.

GPEx will be made available to the company’s customers for the development of their proprietary biomolecules. In addition to enabling rapid cell line development and availability of candidate gene products, the GPEx technology is well suited for both efficient pilot and large-scale production of antibodies and other therapeutic recombinant proteins.

According to the company, GPEx–through insertion of multiple copies of the gene (or genes)—can generate stable cell lines that exhibit significantly higher levels of expression than cell lines generated by other methods. For example, the company reportedly can take the gene for a protein that is believed to treat various cancers and generate a cell line that expresses that protein. This protein is then isolated from the cell culture media after the cell line is grown and has expressed and secreted the protein.

In a company statement, Paul Weiss, PhD, head of Cardinal Health’s Biopharmaceutical Development Services center, said, “We are excited to have our first GPEx patent issued, and look forward to several more as we continue to develop the technology and expand the applications of it. This is a credit to our dedicated scientific staff who have developed this technology over the last 3-4 years.”

–Maribel Rios