National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Abnova Corporation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on a joint research relating to the use of chicken primordial germ cell (PGC) for protein and monoclonal antibody production. The technique for obtaining germline chimeras from primordial germ cell has been established in chicken. This collaboration is intended to address the commercial applicability of transgenic chicken as a robust and efficient bio-factory for biopharmaceutical manufacturing which represents an essential bottleneck in cost, time, and scalability in current drug development, and especially in the post NDA, scale-up production prior to commercialization.
As the world’s largest manufacturer of reagent antibodies and proteins for the research market, Abnova has taken a key initiative to identify alternative production platforms for the biopharmaceutical market. “The primordial germ cell technology pioneered by Dr. Takashi Kuwana has provided a strong foundation in cell culture and transgenic chicken development to catapult a new era of biopharmaceutical and biogeneric manufacturing in the face of growing list of expired and soon-to-be expired protein drugs and early generation of antibody drug, and a rich pipeline of new monoclonal antibodies currently in clinical trials,” stated Wilber Huang, President and CEO of Abnova. “We look forward to working closely with Dr. Kuwana and his team to fully explore all aspects of the technology including its throughput and cost for commercial adaptation.” This collaboration provides great opportunity to leverage the resource of both parties coinciding an unparallel opportunity in the biopharmaceutical industry.
“We are pleased to enter into this collaboration with Abnova with expertise and keen market insight on monoclonal antibody and protein application in preclinical discovery and research. Abnova has now taken on the more advanced step of biologic manufacturing with the use of chicken PGC for the creation of germline chimera and then transgenic chicken for large-scale of biopharmaceuticals,” says Dr. Takashi Kuwana, Director of the National Institute for Environmental Studies. “Chickens have several advantages over the mammalian transgenic counterparts including high productivity in eggs, efficient breeding, similarity of protein glycosylation, and absence of prion problem. While the feasibility of such approach for individual proteins have been demonstrated in research setting, stable generation of transgenic chicken for a diverse collection of biologics has not been thoroughly investigated. We anticipate valuable data and information to be generated from this collaboration.”
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About Abnova
Abnova is a biotech company specializing in high throughput protein expression and antibody production. The system Abnova has developed is a unique combination of world-class technologies and management experience of the IT industry in Taiwan. The company's goal is to vastly expand the scope and availability of bio-tool reagents. As such, it is a taking a genome-wide approach to the production of human recombinant protein and antibody, and is developing a portfolio of integrated and systemized applications including antibody pairs, ultra-sensitive protein quantification and high content screening assays covering protein families that are essential to the drug discovery and diagnostic industries. In the therapeutic arena, Abnova is focusing on fully human monoclonal antibody generation and advanced biopharmaceutical manufacturing platforms. (
www.abnova.com)
About National Institute for Environmental Studies
Since its establishment in 1974, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) has been playing a major role in environmental research in Japan. NIES’ integrative expertise in physics, chemistry, engineering, agriculture, medicine, and pharmacology allows interdisciplinary collaboration among our researchers and the international community. NIES strives to contribute to society through research that fosters and protects a healthy environment for the present and future generations. (
www.nies.go.jp/index.html)
