MorphoSys, Wacker Expand Collaboration In Antigen Material Production

The technology complements MorphoSys’s existing production platforms. It could offer advantages with regard to the production of novel antigens, which have proven difficult to produce with conventional expression systems.

Marlies Sproll, chief scientific officer of MorphoSys, said: “The use of Wacker’s secretion technology for antigen production allows us to approach development programs where the production of the disease- relevant target molecule represents a major challenge. This could offer us and our partners a head-start in therapeutic projects against novel drug targets including bacterial antigens in current and future infectious disease programs.”

Thomas Maier, managing director at Wacker Biotech, said: “The extension of our existing collaboration with MorphoSys underpins the success of our protein production technology Esetec. Since we introduced this innovation to the biopharmaceutical market we see that more and more companies revisit E coli as production host to benefit from shorter development timelines.”

The patented Esetec secretion system, which is based on E coli, is a tried-and-tested technology for production of proteins, including antibody fragments. The system comprises a specific E coli strain developed and patented by Wacker, which is able to secrete recombinant proteins in their native conformation into the culture medium during fermentation. This extra-cellular production makes it easier to purify the recombinant products, and the expensive process step of refolding is also dispensed with, said the company.

Wacker and MorphoSys entered into an initial feasibility study agreement for the use of the Wacker secretion technology for the production of antibodies in 2005. The agreement was later supplemented in 2008 with a formal license to use the Wacker technology.