19
Downstream
thirty seven
New Faster, Scalable Isolation of Viral
Vectors from Amersham Biosciences
Amersham Biosciences licenses Q Sepharose XL patent covering adenovirus purification
technology from Gencell
Piscataway, NJ February 2004
Amersham Biosciences, the life sciences business of Amersham (LSE:, NYSE:, OSE: AHM),
has made available today a chromatographic medium for virus purification. "Q SepharoseTM XL virus licensed" enables the
purification of adenovirus and other viruses in gene therapy and vaccine applications. The product enables purification of
virus preparations significantly faster than conventional technology with the added benefit of easy scale-up for the
production of clinical batches.
Amersham Biosciences has licensed French biopharmaceutical company Gencell SAS' patent covering the use of Q
Sepharose XL for purification of adenovirus and other viruses. Customers purchasing "Q Sepharose XL virus licensed" from
Amersham Biosciences will automatically obtain a license to utilize this scaleable product to purify viruses.
For purification, "Q Sepharose XL virus licensed" can be used in conjunction with crossflow filtration and chromatography
systems such as ÄKTApilotTM and BioProcessTM systems from Amersham Biosciences.
"With viral-based gene therapy and vaccine products now moving into late-stage clinical development, there is a growing
need for faster and simpler methods for purifying viral vectors, in particular adenovirus," says Francis Blanche, PhD, Head of
Process Development at Gencell. "Q Sepharose XL provides significantly better performance for adenovirus purification than
other resins we have tested."
"Chromatographic separation for virus purification offers our customers several advantages over centrifugation techniques,"
says Guenter Jagschies, Vice President Marketing, protein separations at Amersham Biosciences. "Chromatographic
purification using Q Sepharose XL requires only a few hours in comparison to as long as 24 hours with centrifugation. In
addition, the scalability of Q Sepharose XL simplifies the transition to commercial-scale manufacturing of viral-based
products."
Gencell SAS, a fully owned biopharmaceutical subsidiary of Aventis Pharma SA, is located in Paris, France. Gencell's lead product, NV1FGF,
is in advanced Phase II trials in partnership with Aventis for the treatment of Peripheral Arterial Disease.
CAP2005
Phoenix, Arizona
May 2005
CAP2005 will cover challenges from harvesting to the critical first step of downstream purification. The idea is to broaden
the scope of the highly appreciated EBA (expanded bed adsorption) conference series to cover all potentially useful
techniques used in the capture phase of product recovery including the first chromatographic step, filtration and
centrifugation, as well as EBA.
Note CAP2005 in your diary for May 2005, and keep an eye on the web site:
www.capconferences.com
Meeting
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