ImmBio’s lead development candidate is an influenza vaccine based on the ImmunoBody® platform technology. An ImmunoBody is a fusion of a selected immuno-dominant antigen with a cell-binding domain — the Fc fragment of human IgG1. The use of recombinant Fc fusion proteins is well documented where it can help solubilize hydrophobic proteins, provide a handle for easy detection and purification, as well as improve half-life…
Tag: <span>insect cell technology</span>
The biologics market, although difficult to estimate, is currently thought to be in excess of $20 billion. In recent years, the growth in the novel therapeutics market has continued to exceed all but the most optimistic of expectations. The number of products in early stage trials may already be over 1,000, with an estimated 40 or so additional products in the process of finally being released to the market. The biologics market is led by relatively few “blockbuster” drugs, but the breadth of novel products continues to expand. This has resulted in exciting times for clinicians but has resulted in concern related to the bottleneck of production capacities for these drugs, as well as the pressure from healthcare agencies to reduce the cost of goods…
In general, the industry has gone through another of its realignment periods, where much was learned, but a lot of restructuring and refocusing took place. Driven by the need to keep the doors open, small to medium sized firms had to do some severe belt tightening, or completely redefine themselves as to technologies, products, and personnel. Many of the larger firms reevaluated their product pipelines, and then made the changes they felt were necessary to assure future revenues, or to make themselves attractive merger partners. Numerous large mergers took place with some that were the largest the biopharmaceutical industry has ever seen. In addition, several medium-sized companies merged, or otherwise found strategic alliances that energized their product pipelines, or simply provided the cash they needed to keep going. Antibody products did very well with a number of blockbusters receiving license approval in 2003…
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) comprise a “superfamily” of cell surface receptors that play a prominent role in cell signalling and are classified into more than 100 subfamilies according to sequence, ligand structure, and receptor function. They are cell surface receptor proteins with seven transmembrane domains which transduce extracellular signals to the interior of cells through heterotrimeric G proteins. GPCRs’ exposure at the exterior cell surface and strong role in cell regulation has provided a rich target family for small compound therapeutics. Of the estimated 35,000 genes in the human genome, approximately 750 encode for GPCRs; half likely encoding sensory receptors, the remaining half representing potential drug targets. Only about 30 of these potential targets are currently modulated by existing pharmaceuticals with approximately 400 remaining potential pharmaceutical targets for validation…