Shifting pipelines drive AMRI to expand protein expression services
According to the Albany Molecular Research Inc (AMRI), the proteomics market is set to reach around $9.2bn (€7.1bn) by 2018 and therefore in response the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) has upped its production of purified recombinant proteins as reagents and tools for biological assays in the preclinical process.
The firm is adding E. coli, mammalian and baculovirus protein expression systems to its facility in Buffalo, New York, Senior VP of Discovery and Development Michael Luther told Biopharma-Reporter.com. The service is as “a standalone solution” for now, but is part of a larger plan to build an integrated drug discovery centre.
The expansion includes the use of “offlow-through electroporation to generate both high-yield transient and stably expressing cell lines for the production of proof-of-concept and single use materials - biologics and reagents, respectively - at the 10 to 100 milligram scale,” he told us.
However, “while this is new for AMRI-Buffalo, we have produced proteins as one aspect of larger, integrated discovery programs on a number of occasions over the last decade in our other global locations.”
Shifting pipelines
AMRI has offered drug discovery services for over twenty years, and this add-on platform has been driven by pharma’s changing demands.
“We believe that there is a growing need for the establishment of integrated approaches including chemistry and biology,” Luther explained, and “a key step is the production of high quality, purified recombinant proteins as reagents and tools for biological assays and sterile, pyrogen-free materials for proof-of-concept, non-human in vivo studies.”
He continued: “We are positioning ourselves to support both small and large molecules. We have been working with partners in the area of antibody drug conjugates and this is an add-on as we move to parallel pipelines.”
