Intrexon Corporation, a leader in the engineering and industrialisation of biology to improve the quality of life and health of the planet, and Johnson Matthey, a global leader in science that enables cleaner air, improved health and more efficient use of natural resources, have entered into an exclusive collaboration focused on the development of microbial strains for fermentative production of peptide-based active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Peptide-based APIs are used as highly effective treatments in numerous therapeutic classes. However due to their structural complexity, peptides often are costly and difficult to produce, requiring specialised equipment and reagents and lengthy synthetic sequences with low chemical yields.
Through the collaboration, Intrexon will utilise its proprietary microbial hosts and fermentation processes for expression of peptides with high fidelity and titer. Intrexon will concentrate on the strain generation, initial fermentation and downstream isolation, as well as purification of the target APIs. Following this foundational work, Johnson Matthey (JM) will be responsible for product scale-up, formulation, and commercialisation.
“Peptides are an important class of therapeutic agents and JM is pleased to be collaborating with the Intrexon team in using their innovative biologically-based technologies to access these technically challenging APIs. Through their strain engineering capabilities, we believe there is significant potential for more efficient production of these important compounds,” commented Robert MacLeod, chief executive of JM.
Randal Kirk, chairman and chief executive officer of Intrexon, added, “As a leading provider of complex APIs and pharmaceutical services, JM is an ideal partner for this program. Their expertise and capacity, combined with Intrexon's powerful platform for the identification, design and engineering of production cells, should provide significant potential for more efficient production of such high-cost active ingredients."
Under the terms of the agreement, JM will have access to Intrexon's technologies and expertise for microbe-based fermentative production of specific target APIs, and Intrexon will receive a technology access fee and reimbursement for all research and development costs. The agreement also provides for milestone payments to Intrexon, as well as royalties based on net sales of commercialised products.
