Synpromics has entered a partnership with Lonza Pharma & Biotech to further develop its inducible promoter system and improve manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals. 

The 18-month project has been made possible through the award of a £235,000 grant, part of the medicines manufacturing competition from Innovate UK. Synpromics has employed its proprietary technology to develop new synthetic inducible/repressible cell-systems that are driven by non-toxic physiological or chemical stimulus, making them ideal for improving productivity and minimizing costs during bioproduction. 

Dr. Michael Roberts, founder & chief science officer of Synpromics, said, “Our primary goal in the first 18 months of this program will be to validate and comprehensively understand the features and benefits of the Synpromics inducible promoter platform in an industrial setting, using well characterized model proteins. Once validated in an industrially relevant situation, the system will be further tested and incorporated into process development for biomanufacturing novel therapeutic constructs. Through this important collaboration, we aim to increase overall flexibility in bioproduction using Synpromics’ inducible promoter platform, and ultimately provide the broader biopharmaceutical industry with powerful new tools to increase the number and type of proteins that can be produced from CHO cells.”

“As part of Lonza Pharma & Biotech’s strategy to drive next-generation biomanufacturing, we will be supporting Synpromics in testing and validating their inducible promoter in our established GS expression system^®,” said Keith Hutchison, senior vice president, Research & Development at Lonza Pharma & Biotech. “This award is a perfect example of how Innovate UK is encouraging companies to come together to bring new ideas to market.”