The use of biotherapeutic treatments has been increasing and is now worth over $100 billion in annual revenues. While the industry is growing, there are pressures to reduce the costs associated with bioprocessing and thereby reduce the price of the drugs to patients. This pressure has been magnified greatly in recent months by the press focusing on drug pricing and development costs. One way to address production costs is by increasing the yield of the cell “factories” that make therapeutic proteins. In the last few decades, average titers across the industry have greatly increased, but there is still a need and a desire for further improvement. Upstream development scientists continually seek new approaches to increase titer without impacting protein quality or downstream processing.
In addition to titer, the industry has developed sophisticated mechanisms to measure protein quality as a predictor of efficacy. Sometimes a tradeoff is made where lower yields are accepted in order to assure that critical quality attributes remain within specification. Glycosylation is one critical quality attribute to consider for biologics. In many cases, differences in glycosylation affect the therapeutic efficacy of a protein. There are multiple factors that drive glycosylation and several currently available approaches to influence glycosylation patterns. One relatively unexplored lever to influence glycosylation patterns is the addition of lipids (cholesterol and fatty acids) to culture media. Multiple studies demonstrate the numerous challenges of adding lipids to culture, specifically in single-use systems.
During this webinar, we explore the drivers of glycosylation and share data using a novel lipid delivery mechanism, a key component of the media Cell-Ess®, to increase titer, improve glycosylation consistency and increase higher glycoforms. Multiple studies have concluded that Cell-Ess increases protein yield when it is added to various previously optimized systems. In these same studies, Cell-Ess is shown to improve glycosylation consistency and increase higher glycoforms.
If you are interested in learning about ways to increase titer without increasing cell count or negatively impacting protein quality, sign up for this informational webinar.
Dr. Adam Elhofy
Chief Science Officer
Dr. Adam Elhofy is the Chief Science Officer at Essential Pharmaceuticals, LLC. Dr. Elhofy developed the core technology for the Ess line of products and aided in creating patents around novel uses of materials. He has over 14 years of scientific research experience in the areas of immunology, neuroscience, and oncology. He was funded by both the National Institutes of Health and the Multiple Sclerosis society as an investigator at Northwestern University Medical School.
His doctoral research won him the award of the Top 5 trainee scientists by the American Association of Immunologists. Dr. Elhofy has 14 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals. He has played a variety of roles with start-up biotech companies ranging from Principal Investigator to Director of Corporate Development.
- Discuss drivers of increasing titer and improving glycosylation in bioproduction
- Understand challenges associated with maintaining desired glycoprofile while achieving high titer
- Review the challenges of adding lipids to culture media
- Learn about the novel lipid delivery technology of Cell-Ess and its impact on glycosylation and titer
- Head of Upstream Development
- Head of Manufacturing
- Head of Process Development
- Head of Cell Line Development
- Head of Process Engineering
- Scientist
- Senior Scientist
- CSO
- CEO
