Cardinal Health Receives Patent for Mammalian Cell Genetic Engineering Technology
04 April 2005
Cardinal Health, the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry, today announced it has been granted its first patent for an innovative technology that will help in the mass production of biopharmaceuticals.
The company received US Patent No. 6,852,510, entitled “Host Cells Containing Multiple Integrating Vectors”, for its gene product expression technology platform. The technology, which Cardinal Health makes available to its customers for the development of their proprietary biomolecules, is marketed under the trademark “GPExTM”.
Cardinal Health’s GPEx technology enables rapid genetic engineering of stable mammalian cell lines. These cell lines are used to produce recombinant human proteins and antibodies, which make up a relatively new category of medicines called biopharmaceuticals. Many of these biopharmaceuticals are either on the market or in development to treat various cancers, arthritis, metabolic diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. In addition to enabling rapid cell line development and availability of candidate gene products, the GPEx technology is well suited for both efficient pilot and large-scale production of antibodies and other therapeutic recombinant proteins.
Through insertion of multiple copies of the gene(s), GPEx can generate, in as little as half the time required using traditional methods, stable cell lines that exhibit significantly higher levels of expression than those cell lines generated by other methods. For example, Cardinal Health can take the gene for a protein that is believed to treat a various cancer, and generate a cell line that expresses that protein. This protein is then isolated from the cell culture media after the cell line is grown and has expressed and secreted the protein.
“We are excited to have our first GPEx patent issued, and look forward to several more as we continue to develop the technology and expand the applications of it,” commented Paul Weiss, PhD, head of Cardinal Health’s Biopharmaceutical Development Services center in Middleton, Wisconsin. “This is a credit to our dedicated scientific staff who have developed this technology over the last 3 to 4 years.”
Cardinal Health has integrated the GPEx cell line engineering technology with clinical scale mammalian cell culture manufacturing to provide a more rapid way for its clients to get biopharmaceutical products, such as monoclonal antibodies, into clinical development.
“Complementing the continuing success of the GPEx technology in the market place, and to better serve our customers, Cardinal Health continues to expand its broad offering of drug development and bio-manufacturing services, including formulation development, fill-finish, bioassay development, biosafety testing, and cGMP manufacturing,” said Weiss.
Except for historical information, all other information in this news release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated or implied. The most significant of these uncertainties are described in Cardinal Health's Form 10-K, Form 8-K and Form 10-Q reports (including all amendments to those reports) and exhibits to those reports, and include (but are not limited to) the costs, difficulties, and uncertainties related to the integration of acquired businesses, the loss of one or more key customer or supplier relationships or changes to the terms of those relationships, changes in the distribution patterns or reimbursement rates for health-care products and/or services, the results, consequences, effects or timing of any inquiry or investigation by any regulatory authority or any legal and administrative proceedings, the impact of previously announced restatements, difficulties in opening new facilities or fully utilizing existing capacity, difficulties and uncertainties associated with business model transitions, including the conversion of margin generated from branded pharmaceutical manufacturers to non-contingent consideration, and general economic and market conditions. Cardinal Health undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.
