Pressure BioSciences (PBI) has signed a contract services agreement with a top biotherapeutics company to enhance the process manufacturing of one of their candidate protein drugs.
 
Two of the major challenges associated with manufacturing recombinant proteins are the formation of aggregates, and protein misfolding. These are significant issues that can prevent a protein drug candidate from ever making it to market. PBI’s BaroFold technology platform addresses these manufacturing challenges.
 
PBI purchased the assets of BaroFold in late 2017, including their extensive patent portfolio. Since that time, the company has incorporated its own proprietary technology and developed a cost-effective way to improve the process manufacturing of proteins by utilizing high pressure. To capitalize on these capabilities, PBI launched the BaroFold Biopharma Services Business in January 2019.
 
“The BaroFold platform can be applied to the development and production of many different therapeutic proteins, can improve product safety, and is scalable and practical for standard bioprocess environments,” said Alexander Lazarev, chief science officer, PBI. “Moreover, it offers ways to reduce or eliminate the use of aggressive chemicals in the protein manufacturing process. Thus, we believe this unique technology platform can help biopharmaceutical companies create and manufacture high quality novel protein therapeutics and biosimilars, lower the cost of existing formulations, and help protect our environment.”
 
Richard Schumacher, president and chief executive officer, PBI, said, “Our proprietary BaroFold Biopharma Services Business offers us a unique opportunity to enter the estimated $44 billion global bioprocess technology market. In addition to successfully performing contract services for two biopharmaceutical companies since the beginning of 2019, we are also in discussions with three additional biopharmaceutical companies interested in utilizing our proprietary BaroFold services for their protein drug candidates. To take full advantage of this opportunity, we have doubled the capacity of our contract services team, purchased additional sophisticated equipment, and developed new high-pressure concepts that further improve and enhance our BaroFold process scalability and its GMP compliance.”