British firm Antitope will be using its Composite CHO™ technology to develop a manufacturing cell line for the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research (BIIR). The cell line will be used toward production of BIIR’s dendritic-cell-targeting vaccine for treating head and neck and cervical cancer.
Composite CHO, according to Antitope, can generate stable cell lines that can produce high yields of proteins and antibodies ready for cGMP manufacture. Gerard Zurawski, BIIR's co-director and director of its Center for Biotechnology, said in a statement that “we anticipate that the vaccine can now be rapidly advanced to clinical studies.”
Antitope and Baylor have been working together for some time: Back in January of 2010, Antitope made an agreement to apply its Composite Human Antibody™ technology to humanize several novel BIIR antibodies, which BIIR then used to develop its vaccines, including the one that is the subject of the current project.
Antitope along with PolyTherics comprises Abzena, a company the two firms formed last month. PolyTherics purchased Antitope in July of 2013.
