Lonza, UCB Sign Antibody Pact

BIOTECHNOLOGY

Lonza and UCB have signed a long-term agreement under which Lonza will manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients based on PEGylated antibody fragments for UCB. Pro duction will take place at a $165 million microbial fermentation facility that Lonza says it will build in Visp, Switzerland.

The deal highlights growth in the relatively new fields of antibody fragments and single-chain antibodies. Both can be manufactured microbially, rather than with the mammalian cell culture technique that must be used to produce typical monoclonal antibodies.

According to Kevin Johnson, general partner at U.K.-based Ash Biotech Consulting, microbial production can save time and money for biotech firms developing antibodies. Therapeutically, antibody fragments penetrate tissue better than whole antibodies and are "immunologically silent," Johnson points out.

UCB says that Cimzia, its antibody fragment now in Phase III clinical trials for Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, is the most advanced product using this technology. Other antibody fragments are in the new-drug pipeline, however, prompting investment in microbial fermentation production capacity.

Lonza says it will build two 15,000-L fermentation trains to go into operation late in 2006. A portion of the capacity will be dedicated to UCB for six years.

Boehringer Ingelheim, meanwhile, opened a $100 million microbial fermentation plant in Austria last month, and Wacker-Chemie recently announced plans to invest up to $60 million in microbial contract manufacturing. Wacker said it chose to focus on microbial fermentation, in part because it anticipates demand for antibody fragments.

Johnson says antibody fragments are complementing, not replacing, whole antibodies in the biotechnology industry's labs. "Antibodies are on a roll," he says, "and this technology is going to maintain the trajectory or increase it."