Public Funding for Glycoselect (UK) Limited

To develop and commercialise a microfluidic analytical tool and a purification column for effective isolation of monoclonal antibodies on the basis of glycan structures.

While biotherapeutics offer potential treatments for some of the most debilitating diseases the development and manufacture of these potentially life changing treatments is risky, technically challenging and expensive. This program will combine GlycoSeLect UK Ltd's glycosylation recognition technology with ForteBio Pall Life Science's unique BLI biosensor based analytical platform technology. This will create a novel analytical platform that will enable rapid and high-throughput analysis of biotherapeutic product glycosylation, a critical product quality attribute that impacts on the efficacy and safety of these therapeutic molecules. This new glycoanalytical platform can be deployed throughout the biotherapeutic development pipeline, and in manufacturing processes, to increase the efficiency and deliver significant cost savings. By working in partnership with Allergan Biologics Ltd, a leading biotherapeutic developer and manufacture, and the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) this project will demonstrate the value of this new glycoanalytical platform for the rapid glycoanalysis of biotherapeutic products to support the development and manufacture of these important therapeutic products.

Development of biotherapeutics is risky and expensive with current timelines from bench to bedside being estimated at 7-10 years at a cost of $2.8bn. This project exploits Glythera’s technology which can stabilise glycosylation profiles to increase bioavailability and the therapeutic window to enhance the efficacy of the drug but also patient care through the reduction in dosing cycles. GlycoSelect will develop a highly specific lectin to Glythera’s technology as a supporting and orthogonal approach to analytical development and characterisation. Since this rapid methodology can be deployed during any point in the discovery through to the clinical development programme this would support and significant de-risk drug development efforts. Both companies will demonstrate the value of their combined technologies through the further development of improved drug classes and comparison to known analytical methods underpinning their importance in drug development.