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University of Kent signs licensing deal with Delta Biotechnology Limited

February 05, 2004

The University of Kent has recently concluded negotiations with Delta Biotechnology - a company with more than twenty years experience in the expression of heterologous proteins - to allow licensing of the technology covered by the University's patent process for increasing the production of disulphide bonded recombinant proteins from the baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Methods for the manufacture of human proteins have been used to produce such products as insulin (used in the treatment of diabetes), growth hormones, and interferon (used in the fight against some cancers to stimulate the body's immune system).

Professor Mick Tuite, Professor of Molecular Biology in the Department of Biosciences and Robert Freedman, then Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biosciences, were approached by Merck & Co Inc in the late 1980s with a view to working together to create a process to produce an increased yield of correctly folded recombinant proteins.

The collaboration was borne out of Professor Tuite's expertise in the area of yeast genetics coupled with the protein folding expertise of Professor Freedman. Merck & Co were interested in the overproduction of antistasin, a potent protein inhibitor of a blood coagulation factor.

The outcome of the research project was an expression technology, which enables genes to be expressed in baker's yeast to create foreign, including human, proteins. The key to the patented technology is the over expression of the folding enzyme protein disulphide isomerase (PDI) to allow a higher yield of correctly folded proteins to be obtained. Under the University's Intellectual Property Policy, a large share of the income received by the University under this deal goes to the inventors, with the balance of the revenue being allocated to the Department.

Delta Biotechnology Limited is one of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in the UK and a world leader in yeast-based expression systems for recombinant proteins. It is the only company to succeed in the commercialisation of recombinant human albumin, Recombumin'¢, for excipient use, produced in its own large-scale compliant facility, with sales exceeding £10 million annually. Delta has established a number of key technology transfer and license agreements with major US and Japanese companies to use its technology platforms. Use of this patented technology will enhance Delta's comprehensive technical capability and allow the company to further optimise its expression systems to produce recombinant proteins in exceptionally high yield which are correctly folded and able to conform to the rigorous standards required in the manufacture of high value biopharmaceuticals.

Kent, University of