Cell line engineering for imporved fertility treatment

Projektinformationen

Kyron.bio WomenTech

ID Finanzhilfevereinbarung: 101114052

DOI

10.3030/101114052

Projekt abgeschlossen

EK-Unterschriftsdatum 5 Juni 2023

Startdatum 1 Juli 2023

Enddatum 31 Januar 2024

Finanziert unter

• European innovation ecosystems

Gesamtkosten

Keine Daten

EU-Beitrag

€ 75 000,00

Koordiniert durch

KYRON.BIO
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Kyron.bio WomenTech (Cell line engineering for imporved fertility treatment)

Berichtszeitraum: 2023-07-01 bis 2024-01-31

Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts

In the last decade, there has been an explosion in drug discovery. We are discovering and testing new molecules faster than ever before. However, bioproduction techniques are limiting advanced medicines from reaching patients.

Living cell factories are used to produce therapeutic proteins such antibodies, hormones and vaccines. Over 70% of these complex drugs are produced using mammalian cells, due to their ability to add complex modifications to the protein, more directly reflecting the patients natural biological processes and thereby enhancing clinical outcomes. However, mammalian systems underproduce complex proteins: they suffer from low productivity, typically producing protein at 10-100-fold lower yield of proteins than required (Jayapal et al.,). Approximately three quarters of therapeutic proteins are produced below the industry standard. Kyron.bio is making molecular level changes to improve the bioproduction efficiency, using synthetic biology.

The specific purpose of this grant is to focus our platform technology on optimising the production of Folicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), a hormone that controls sexual functions and naturally stimulates the ovaries to produce eggs. FSH is administered during fertility treatment, and currently has a global market size of $41M. Current bioproduction tools are limiting optimal production of FSH: yield of FSH is 100 fold below the industry standard for biologics. Further, optimal molecular modifications are required to optimise pregnancy outcomes, with a 30% increase in pregnancy outcomes observed when women receive treatment with optimised FSH (Selman et al., 2010). Here, we propose the use of our novel proprietary cell line to optimise production of FSH.

Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse

The funding provided by the Women TechEU program allowed the CEO Dr. Emilia McLaughlin and Senior Scientist Dr. Marina Lochhead to complete a project to improve the production and performance of Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), a hormone that controls sexual functions and naturally stimulates the ovaries to produce eggs. FSH is administered during fertility treatment, and currently has a global market size of $41M. Current bioproduction tools are limiting the optimal production of FSH: yield of FSH is 100-fold below the industry standard for biologics. Further, optimal molecular modifications are required to optimise pregnancy outcomes, with a 30% increase in pregnancy outcomes observed when women receive treatment with optimised FSH (Selman et al., 2010).

During this project, we used a novel glycan engineering approach to explore the role of N-glycosylation on FSH function, and developed a cell line that could be beneficial for FSH production.

Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)

This project combined structure-based glycan engineering and genetically engineering mammalian cells to enhance the therapeutic activity of FSH. We showed that by engineering additional N-glycan sites into the β-subunit of FSH, we can modestly increase its bioactivity. We believe that through optimization of expression by generating cell lines stably expressing our glycan-engineered version of FSH that we can significantly improve its therapeutic potential and form the basis of the next-generation of FSH, in which the interaction between the ⍺-subunit and the β-subunit of FSH is the focal point of therapeutic improvement.

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