News | September 4, 2008

greenovation Increases Investment In GMP-Compliant Process Development For The Production Of Therapeutic Proteins

greenovation Biotech GmbH is investing in an accelerated implementation of its technical production platform in order to satisfy increasing future demand in the pharmaceutical industry for therapeutic proteins created by the greenovation System.

Research in terms of protein production in moss, and the associated possibility of enhancing the gycosylation of proteins are the core of greenovation's business, resulting in the manufacture of protein prototypes for pharmaceutical research. The company will significantly increase its investment in the development of industrial processes for the production of pharmaceutical proteins, compliant with pharmaceutical standards.

Gregor Mirow has joined greenovation as CEO and managing director, succeeding Hans Bodo Hartmann, who since 2005 has successfully taken greenovation's R&D efforts to market, turning the company into a successful market player with a top class client portfolio within the international pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Hans Bodo Hartmann comments: "greenovation is a well known company in the pharmaceutical industry and, by virtue of its bryotechnology, has an outstanding position from which to advance into the upcoming phase of industrial production."

Gregor Mirow has held several senior executive positions in the international biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, and has considerable experience in the field of biotechnological production.

"Protein production in moss offers the pharmaceutical industry an opportunity to produce enhanced proteins in a new production system at competitive prices. greenovation Biotech GmbH invests into its ability to provide GMP-compliant cell-line development and production processes to supply superior proteins to the pharmaceutical industry more rapidly and more cost-effectively. I am really looking forward to working with this successful and innovative team", said Gregor Mirow.

greenovation is working with bryotechnology in photo bioreactors to create human proteins, such as antibodies for medical diagnosis and treatment. A 100 L photo bioreactor was recently installed at the Freiburg laboratories of greenovation.

With Bryo-Speed and Bryo-Master , greenovation Biotech GmbH has developed two fast production systems for research scale product evaluation and protein property assessment of its glyco-enhanced products. Bryo-Speed provides a vehicle to supply small quantities of glycoproteins to assess system feasibility and/or product evaluation within four to six weeks. Bryo-Master is based on stable production cell lines allowing the production of larger quantities for further research and evaluation of the material for early pre-clinical studies within months.

About greenovation Biotech GmbH
greenovation Biotech GmbH is a developer of Glyco-Engineering and protein production technologies in moss, and a service-provider and supplier to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Greenovation offers contract research, cell-line and production process development and contract manufacturing. The privately held biotechnology company, headquartered in Heilbronn, Germany, with research facilities in Freiburg, was incorporated in September 1999 as a spin-off of the University of Freiburg. Venture capital investors are L-EigenkapitalAgentur, Karlsruhe, Mediport Venture, Berlin, the SeedGruppe, Tuebingen and Zukunftsfonds, Heilbronn.

About Bryotechnology
Greenovation's core competency lies in the efficacy-enhancement and production of pharmaceutically potent glycoproteins in contained photobioreactors. The production platform - Bryotechnology, - is based on protein production in bryophytes (mosses). Recombinant antibodies and other glycoproteins can be efficiently produced in the moss bioreactors, with high flexibility and control over the carbohydrate structure. Such Glyco-Engineering can, for example, be exploited to produce antibodies with high potency in targeted cell-killing by ADCC - a clinically validated mechanism for the targeted removal of cancer cells.

SOURCE: greenovation Biotech GmbH