Horizon Discovery inks licensing deal with ProteoNic

UK gene editing technologies firm Horizon Discovery Group (LSE: HZD) today announced a non-exclusive licensing agreement with privately-held Dutch group ProteoNic to provide the CHOGUN expression vector to customers alongside Horizon’s HD-BIOP3 GS Null CHO cell line as standard, providing a powerful and complete biomanufacturing platform.

When paired with the correct vector technology, a GS Null cell line increases the stringency of selection and enables identification of clones expressing biotherapeutic product at commercially viable levels, with reduced timelines and without the need for toxic methionine sulphoximine (MSX) as a selection agent. Financial details of the agreement are not disclosed.

Biomanufacturing in CHO cells is performed based on high-expressing clones, the identification of which can be streamlined through the use of metabolic selection. Glutamine is an amino acid required for cellular viability and the only source of glutamine production in the cell is through the enzymatic action of glutamine synthetase (GS). MSX inhibits GS activity in cells so that only those clones that are most efficient at producing recombinant protein are able to proliferate. A major drawback with this approach however, is that MSX is toxic and requires removal during product purification.