Codon Devices to Engineer Protein Drug for Merrimack Pharmaceuticals
Predominantlydeals, Alliances, Biotech
Erik Mellgren wrote:
Two town biotech companies have joined forces to age a new protein drug. The ahead, between Codon Devices and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, both of Cambridge, MA, was made unconcealed today.
Merrimack focuses on cancer and autoimmune infirmity. It has one drug already in clinical trials for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and the eye affliction uveitis. Under the new agreement, the companies will team up on one of Merrimack’s other projects.
Up to now, Codon’s work has mainly been in synthesizing a expansive variety of custom-made gene sequences and genetically engineered cells for its customers. The allot with Merrimack is the company’s “first move into value-added mortal drug product situation,” according to a news-hounds release.
“We will use our knowledge in protein engineering and trade with Merrimack on optimizing a protein therapeutic that is now in pre-clinical advance,” said Codon CEO Brian Barnes in an press conference.
Many of the protein drugs currently in advancement are based on monoclonal antibodies. Dull companies introduce then changes in the antibodies to beget vast “libraries” of variants, then television the libraries to find the right ones for a assumed drug target.
Codon has chosen another plan, identifying regions of the protein medicament candidate that might be important to how it functions in the trunk and then making targeted changes to those regions by systematically modifying the gene that codes for the protein. “Codon has one of the in seventh heaven’s largest gene-synthesizing factories and we will be making a set of directed modifications,” says Barnes. But even though the changes are well-organized the company will still have a dazzling thousand of genes and proteins to synthesize and camouflage. “In the course of this estimate it might be from one billion to ten billion varieties,” says Barnes.
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