Pfenex, Inc. has awarded Althea Technologies a contract for the cGMP manufacture of circumsporozoite protein (CSP) from Plasmodium falciparum, a malaria vaccine. Althea Technologies will use its cGMP-ready Pfenex Expression Technology-based production process. Processes for several additional malaria antigens are currently being developed at Pfenex.

"We are pleased to award this contract to Althea Technologies," said Bertrand C. Liang, chief executive officer of Pfenex. "Pfenex Expression Technology has made the high titer production of full-length, soluble, active CSP antigen a reality; recombinant expression of full-length, stable CSP has eluded researchers for years and with our protein expression platform we have overcome those challenges. With Althea we can rapidly implement the large-scale cGMP production of the CSP necessary for future human clinical studies to support NIAID's malaria vaccine development efforts."