Millipore signs licensing agreement with Astellas

The license will enable Astellas to more efficiently produce its drug targets, such as antibodies in mammalian cells, by generating higher protein yields. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Millipore’s Ubiquitous Chromatin Opening Element (UCOE) technology, which was originally licensed from the laboratory of Michael Antoniou at King’s College, London, can be used for the fast and simple generation of proteins at small scale for drug discovery and research, as well as for identifying stable and highly productive cell lines suitable for larger scale manufacturing.

Other applications of the UCOE technology include gene therapy, transgenics, and the generation of cell lines for drug screening.

Andrew Bulpin, vice president of upstream bioprocessing business unit at Millipore, said: “We value Astellas’s commitment to the UCOE technology. This license is another example of how we can help pharmaceutical and biotech companies efficiently develop biologic drugs.”