Lonza Strengthens Cell Capabilities

Lonza is strengthening its cell capabilities with two new launches announced on March 27, 2019. The first is CellBio Services, a comprehensive portfolio of unique, custom solutions that are designed to meet specific, individual research application needs. The second is a gene integration technology, GS piggyBac.

CellBio Services give researchers across pharmaceutical and contract manufacturing organizations the option to choose from a range of services, including cell-line expansion and banking, media production, cell isolation, cell characterization, transfection services, and 3D cell-culture services.

The service offering comprises:
• Cell-line expansion and banking-cell lines can be expanded up to 10e10, and the cells can be cryopreserved in the preferred format.

• Media production-manipulation of Lonza’s catalog media products or production of new media, either in liquid or powder format.

• Cell isolation-from a variety of tissues, including human, primate, porcine, canine, feline, and murine.

• Cell characterization-development of cell-based assays for functional testing of recombinant proteins and small molecules.

• Generation of recombinant cell lines-fast and convenient creation of recombinant cell lines overexpressing the gene of interest.

• 3D cell-culture services-The patented real architecture for 3D tissue (RAFT) System is used to generate custom 3D cell culture systems, such as co-cultures and barrier models.

“For many years we’ve been leading the cell research market, with a broad offering of high-quality primary cells, media, reagents, and devices,” said Andrew Winner, product manager for CellBio Services at Lonza Pharma Biotech & Nutrition, in a company press release. “CellBio Services has been established to expand this offering beyond the standard catalog products and beyond what’s currently available on the market. Our customers can now benefit from unique manufacturing and testing capabilities, as well as Lonza’s access to the broadest tissue inventories, to unlock the next level of their research options.”

Lonza also launched GS piggyBac, gene-integration technology that is capable of inserting large DNA cargos into transcriptionally active and genetically stable areas of the genome associated with highly expressed genes. The technology demonstrates higher yields and enhanced performance and is suited to support the expression of challenging proteins.

The technology represents an evolution from Lonza’s GS Xceed expression platform, a system built on more than 35 years of mammalian expression, process development, technical, and manufacturing expertise. GS Xceed includes the company’s proprietary CHOK1SV GS-KO cell line, vectors and access to optimized cell culture media, feeds, and extensive expertise.

“Biologic pipelines are evolving toward more-complex protein formats, creating a growing demand for the reliable, high titer expression of these challenging biologics,” said Sarah Holland, Lonza’s global head of Licensing, in the company press release. “More than ever before, there is a real need for robust and scalable expression platforms that can keep pace with these requirements. GS piggyBac is ideally suited to help our customers address these challenges. The potential of this technology to improve cell line stability and productivity is an area of huge promise.”

“The piggyBac technology implementation and the subsequent launch of GS piggyBac has been a key focus for our R&D team. This new development offers our customers access to enhanced technology platforms for mammalian expression and biomanufacturing,” added Keith Hutchison, head of R&D at Lonza Pharma Biotech, in the press release.

Source: Lonza for CellBio Services and GS piggyBac