Moving fusion proteins forward

GENEVA—Selexis SA, a life-sciences company and a global leader in mammalian cell line generation technology, has entered into a commercial license agreement that provides Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. with access to high-performance research cell banks developed using the Selexis SUREtechnology Platform. Takeda is leveraging Selexis’ mammalian cell line-based protein expression platform to develop recombinant fusion proteins.

“Successfully developing a high-performance cell line expressing Takeda’s fusion proteins validates the strength of our SUREtechnology Platform,” said Dr. Yemi Onakunle, vice president of business development and licensing for Selexis. “Through the systematic application of our platform under an initial licensing agreement, Selexis was able to isolate clones with very high productivity. We look forward to our continued work with Takeda under this agreement.”

Selexis’ proprietary and high-performance SUREtechnology Platform reportedly facilitates the rapid, stable and cost-effective production of virtually any recombinant protein, including those that are difficult to express in other systems. It also provides seamless integration of the biologics and vaccine development continuum, spanning discovery to commercialization.

With more than 100 partners worldwide, more than 76 biologic drug development programs and three commercial products utilizing its cell lines, Selexis says it has a history of “empowering scientists and biopharmaceutical companies around the world to realize the full potential of their research.”

A couple weeks earlier, the company announced that that Japanese company JSR Corporation had agreed to acquire Selexis in a transaction that, once completed, would mark the second major biotechnology addition to the JSR group of companies following JSR’s acquisition of KBI Biopharma in 2015. Selexis is to be integrated within KBI Biopharma’s operations to create the most robust and fastest “gene to GMP” service offering in the biopharmaceutical industry.

“Selexis has the best-in-class cell line development technology and offers the ability to solve some of the most difficult expression challenges in biologics development,” said Eric R. Johnson, president of JSR’s Life Sciences Division. “JSR holds quality as the highest of its values and we see that same focus in Selexis. The Selexis technologies seamlessly integrate into the biologics development continuum, spanning discovery to commercialization. This allows us—in conjunction with KBI Biopharma—to move one step closer in our vision to become the biologics contract development and manufacturing organization of the 21st century.”