GSK taps Alnylam tech for vaccine production
pharmafile | November 7, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | Alnylam, GSK, vaccines
GlaxoSmithKline has teamed up with gene silencing specialist Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in a project aimed at speeding up the production of vaccines.
US-based Alnylam has developed an RNA interference (RNAi) technology platform called VaxiRNA that can be used to selectively shut off the activity of genes in cell culture or egg-based production systems that limit or prevent the ability of viruses to grow. That allows yields of the antigens produced in cell culture to be boosted.
The premise behind the gene silencing is very simple, even though the cellular mechanisms are complex.
All gene products made in cells are made via a process in which messenger RNA carries sequence information to the ribosome, where the cellular machinery produces the proteins. By blocking mRNA this process is interrupted and no protein is made.
Alnylam said in a statement: “This new platform addresses the significant unmet commercial need for innovative technologies that can improve the manufacture of vaccine products, especially where vaccine production is a limiting factor for the scale and speed of global immunisation needs.”
GSK is the first company to take out a licence to the technology and will use the platform initially to improve its production of influenza vaccines, with an option to extend the arrangement to two additional vaccine products.
Under the terms of the collaboration Alnylam will receive research funding, in addition to “potential milestones and payments on unit sales of commercialized vaccine product”, according to the company’s chief executive John Maraganore.
The VaxiRNA platform was developed as part of Alnylam’s efforts to improve the manufacture of biotherapeutic products, such as recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies.
The company is also among the forefront of companies developing RNAi-based therapeutics, with four drugs in clinical development headed by ALN-TTR01 for the treatment of transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis and ALN-PCS for the treatment of severe hypercholesterolemia.
Phil Taylor
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