Clinical Development of a Novel Human Cytomegalovirus Vaccine

Cologne, Germany, January 3, 2013 / B3C newswire / - CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, the developer of the CAP® Technology, a novel human expression system derived from amniocytes, and VPM – Vakzine Projekt Management GmbH, announced today the signing of an exclusive license agreement on VPM’s proprietary human CMV dense body technology.


CAP® Technology is based on an immortalized human cell line for vaccine and protein production developed by CEVEC for industrial use. The serum-free suspension culture of this proprietary cell line allows for high virus yields for a broad variety of human pathogenic viruses. CAP® cells are uniquely suited to produce vaccines against challenging viral targets like human CMV. The non-infectious dense bodies are considered to be one of the most promising new CMV vaccine approaches since they result in efficient and long-lasting immunity. The CMV dense body project is foreseen to enter clinical development within the next 18 months. CEVEC receives exclusive word-wide development and commercialization rights from VPM and VPM will substantially contribute by taking over development project management services for the project. The inventor of the CMV dense body technology, Prof. Dr. Plachter, an internationally reputed CMV expert, actively supports in the project as leading scientific expert.


“With VPM we are teaming up with a very reputed development partner in the field of state-of-the art vaccines for current high-medical need diseases like human CMV. We’re very pleased that VPM and CEVEC are combining our CAP® suspension cells as the enabling production platform with VPMs unique dense body technology. I’m convinced that the dense body technology and CAP® are a perfect match and the combined efforts will substantially shorten the timeline to enter clinical phases,“ stated Wolfgang Kintzel, CEO at CEVEC. "This project shows a scientific and commercial potential untapped in the field of currently pursued viral vaccine targets, " Dr. Rainer Lichtenberger, CFO/COO at CEVEC complements.


“It is a great success story in translational research for VPM and Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research that we were able to bring this early stage vaccine project from academia to industry. With the out-licensing of the CMV dense body project to CEVEC, VPM could again demonstrate that its translational business model is instrumental in developing promising vaccine candidates to a stage of maturity where they can envisage a full pharma development. Cooperating with Cevec will help this potentially live-saving vaccine to tap its full potential”, added Dr. Bernd Eisele CEO of VPM.

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 and located in Cologne, Germany, is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and producing therapeutic proteins, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies with human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC's novel proprietary and patent-protected human CAP® and CAP-TTM expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules and various vaccines. CEVEC is licensing out its human cell-based expression platform as well as its own biobetter candidates through partnerships with renowned pharmaceutical and biotech companies and is developing the CAP technology as a superior production platform to enable difficult to produce viral targets.


About VPM – Vakzine Projekt Management GmbH
VPM was founded in 2002 from Helmholtz-Center for Infection Research. VPM has been active in developing promising biopharmaceutical candidates from academic research. Several products, ranging from small molecules, recombinant proteins up to live vaccines and ATMPs, have successfully been brought into clinical phase I and II trials by VPM and its team members. VPM now offers its experience in translational project management and regulatory liason to its clients in Pharma, Biotech, and Academia. VPM moves developmental products to the clinical stage faster, more cost-efficiently, and with higher success rates.

Contacts:
Wolfgang Kintzel, CEO
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln, Germany
fon +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 – 00
fax +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 – 01
info@cevec.com
www.cevec.com


Bernd Eisele, MD, CEO
Vakzine Projekt Management GmbH
Mellendorfer Straße 9
D-30625 Hannover, Germany
fon: +49 511 1699080
fax: +49 511 16990829
info@vakzine-manager.de
www.vakzine-manager.de

CEVEC Signs License Agreement with Yuhan Corporation of South Korea

Cologne, Germany, December 20, 2012 / B3C newswire / - CEVEC, the developer of a novel human expression system derived from amniocytes, and Yuhan, a leading manufacturer of pharmaceutical products based in Seoul, Korea announced today the signing of a CAP-Technology license agreement. The license will enable Yuhan to utilize CEVEC’s CAP-T™ and CAP® cell expression systems for the production and development of various therapeutic proteins.

CAP-T™ CAP® cells are immortalized cell lines for transient and stable protein production developed by CEVEC. These non-tumor origin cell lines exhibit high protein expression, have been adapted to serum-free suspension culture and show post-translational modifications that are human-like, including authentic human glycosylation patterns. The Technology allows for superior protein yields in a shorter time frame than traditional methods.

“With Yuhan Corporation we have won one of the most prestigious Asian Pharma Companies as a customer. We’re very pleased that Yuhan has chosen our CAP and CAP-T expression sytems as a pivotal platform to develop therapeutically relevant molecules. I’m convinced that the cells will have a major impact to develop more efficient biologics and will also shorten the timeline to enter clinical phases “ stated Wolfgang Kintzel, CEO at CEVEC.

Dr. Jong-Gyun Kim, Head of the Bio-Innovation Unit at Yuhan Research Institute said: “After evaluating CAP and CAP-T we are excited about the potential of CEVEC’s CAP Technology. We obtained outstanding results from transfections of various target proteins in CAP-cells and we are convinced that this expression system with it’s authentic human glycosylation profile will be of great benefit to further develop our pipeline molecules"

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 and located in Cologne, Germany, is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and producing therapeutic proteins, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies with human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC's novel proprietary and patent-protected human CAP® and CAP-T™ expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules and various vaccines. CEVEC is licensing out its human cell-based expression platform as well as its own biobetter candidates through partnerships with renowned pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

About Yuhan
Yuhan Corporation, the leading pharmaceutical company in South Korea, is focusing its R&D capabilities on new chemical entities, new biologics, herbal medicines, and APIs for global markets. For the last 86 years, Yuhan is committed to deliver advanced and innovative medicines with a slogan “Innovative, Nimble, and Translational R&D”. In 2007, ‘Revanex’, the world’s first acid pump agonist was out-licensing to China, and is now supplied world-wide to markets in Asia. Yuhan is to become the global premiere customer-focused pharma company with value driven, globally competitive R&D capability.

Contact

Wolfgang Kintzel, CEO
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln, Germany
fon +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 – 00
fax +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 – 01
info@cevec.com
www.cevec.com

Jong-Gyun Kim, Ph.D.
Head, BioInnovation Unit, Yuhan Corporation
416-1 Gongse-dong, Yongin-si, Korea
Tel +82 31-899-4168
Fax +82 31-275-6145
myseed@yuhan.co.kr

Join Us for a Max Cyte Webinar on Wed, Dec 12, 2012 11:00am - 12:00pm EST

MaxCyte Transient Transfection of Biologically Relevant Cells: CEVEC CAP-T Technology for High Yield Expression of Proteins in Human-Derived Cells

Register Now (by clicking here) !

Learn how to produce proteins with authentic human post-translational modifications using MaxCyte flow electroporation for large scale, transient transfection.

Overview:
Changes in post translational modifications can affect the therapeutic potential of biotherapeutics under development. Thus it is important to produce and evaluate antibodies and proteins of interest with human post translational modifications early in the biotherapeutic development pipeline. The MaxCyte STX Scalable Transfection System allows for fully scalable transient transfection of human-derived cells, such as CEVEC's CAP-T cells, for production of recombinant proteins and antibodies with authentic human post translational modifications. CEVEC has developed an expression system for biopharmaceuticals based on human amniocytes offering significant advantages over existing production technologies.

Register now (by clicking here) for this webinar to learn how using MaxCyte large scale transient transfection of CAP-T cells allows for:

• Can transfect from 5E5 cells in seconds to 2E11 cells in
  <30 minutes
• High yields of authentic complex proteins reducing costs
  of downstream processing
• Increased specific activity of therapeutics, thereby reducing
  protein dose
• Avoidance of immunogenic non-human carbohydrate residues
• Authentic sialylation of therapeutics for improved half-lives

Discussions lead by:

Dr. Hartmut Tintrup
VP Business Development & Licensing, CEVEC Pharmaceuticals 

James Brady, Ph.D.
Director, Technical Applications, MaxCyte, Inc. 

Karen Donato, Ph.D.
EVP, Global Business Development & Marketing, MaxCyte, Inc.

MaxCyte, Inc.
22 Firstfield Road, Suite 110
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
(301) 944-1700
info@maxcyte.com
www.maxcyte.com

CATALENT ANNOUNCES CELL LINE SALES AGREEMENT WITH CEVEC

Deal follows study which achieved record yield for human alpha-1 antitrypsin (hAAT) molecule 

Somerset, NJ, November 13, 2012 – Catalent Pharma Solutions today announced that it had reached a commercial cell line sales agreement with CEVEC Pharmaceuticals for recombinant human alpha-1 antitrypsin (hAAT).

The companies have also signed a  joint development and marketing agreement that combines CEVEC’s CAP® cell line, a high performance protein expression platform originally derived from primary human amniocytes and Catalent‘s GPEx® technology, a powerful gene-insertion method providing single-copy gene integration at multiple genomic locations in dividing cells. This agreement will allow the co-promotion of the combined technologies to biotechnology companies needing cell line development and manufacturing of various proteins.

The announcements follow a successful five month study which achieved a new milestone in the field of complex protein production, having demonstrated a record yield for a non-antibody protein produced in a human expression system.

Leading global drug development and delivery solution provider Catalent, and CEVEC, the developer of a novel, market-leading human protein expression system derived from amniocytes, achieved a manufacturing yield of over 3 grams per liter for a secreted, highly glycosylated non-antibody protein, using the challenging hAAT molecule which harbors 3N-glycosylation sites, through a combination of two highly innovative  proprietary technologies. The program began with the development of a GPEx based stable pool in CAP cells at Catalent, followed by initial process development at CEVEC.

“Enabling biotech companies to get clone candidates to clinic more quickly and efficiently is at the core of Catalent’s biologics business philosophy,” commented Kent Payne, Vice President and General Manager, of Catalent’s Biologics business. “Having developed the hAAT molecule using our combined technologies, we have now reached a commercial agreement with CEVEC on the cell line and look forward to further drawing on this combination in the development of additional recombinant proteins and antibodies.”

“We are very excited to have proven the potential for generating high expressing human cell lines in a much shorter timeframe than traditional methods,” added Wolfgang Kintzel, CEO of CEVEC. “As the yield of 3 g/L was achieved already at the stable pool stage, a further increase in productivity is expected by the ongoing generation of the clonal cell line. The high yield attained for a difficult to express and therapeutically relevant protein, such as hAAT, represents an enabling milestone for large scale manufacturing of complex proteins in human cells.”

About Catalent
Catalent Pharma Solutions is the global leader in development solutions and advanced drug delivery technologies, providing world-wide clinical and commercial supply capabilities for drugs, biologics and consumer health products.  With over 75 years serving the industry, Catalent has proven expertise in bringing more customer products to market faster, enhancing product performance and ensuring reliable product supply. Catalent employs approximately 9,000 people, including over 1,000 scientists, at nearly 30 facilities across 5 continents and generates more than $1.6 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, N.J. For more information, visit www.catalent.com.
more products. better treatments. reliably supplied.™

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 and located in Cologne, Germany, is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and producing therapeutic proteins, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies with human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC's novel proprietary and patent-protected human CAP® and CAP-T T expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules and various vaccines. CEVEC is licensing out its human cell-based expression platform as well as its own biobetter candidates through partnerships with renowned pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
For more information, visit www.cevec.com.

Christopher Halling
Strategic Marketing Manager - Europe
Catalent Pharma Solutions
Frankland Road, Blagrove, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK - SN5 8YG
M +44 (0)7580 041073
www.catalent.com
more products. better treatments. reliably supplied.™

Wolfgang Kintzel
CEO
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Strasse 62
D-51105 Cologne, Germany
T +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 00
info@cevec.com
www.cevec.com

CCS Cell Culture Service Signs Strategic License Agreement with CEVEC

Cologne and Hamburg, Germany, November 5, 2012 / B3C Newswire / - CEVEC Pharmaceuticals ("CEVEC"), the developer of a novel human expression system derived from amniocytes, and CCS Cell Culture Service GmbH ("CCS"), a contract research organization based in Hamburg, Germany, announced today the signing of a strategic license agreement.

The license will enable CCS to offer its customers transiently transfected CAP-TTM cells for cell based assay and protein production applications.


The transient CAP-TTM protein production technology is based on CAP® cells, an immortalized cell line for stable protein production developed by CEVEC. These non-tumor origin cell lines exhibit high protein expression, have been adapted to serum-free suspension culture and show post-translational modifications that are human-like, including authentic human glycosylation patterns.
The collaboration combines CEVEC's proprietary CAP-TTM expression system with CCS' expertise to produce and process bulk quantities of transiently transfected cells for drug discovery research in pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
"CCS Cell Culture Services is a very experienced and trusted partner for the custom supply of cell based assay reagents. We're very pleased that they will add our CAP-T cells to their cell based assay technology portfolio and we're convinced that the cells will contribute significantly to the drug discovery process in the pharma industry " stated Wolfgang Kintzel, CEO at CEVEC.
Oliver Wehmeier, Managing Director of Cell Culture Services said: "We are excited about the potential of CEVEC's CAP-T technology. The cells meet all requirements for a host cell line in terms of robustness, transfection efficacy, expression level, and scalability. We obtained outstanding results from transient transfections of various secreted, intracellular, or membrane bound target proteins in CAP-T cells and we are pretty sure that this expression system will be of great benefit to our customers"


About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH


CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 and located in Cologne, Germany, is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and producing therapeutic proteins, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies with human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC's novel proprietary and patent-protected human CAP® and CAP-TTM expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules and various vaccines. CEVEC is licensing out its human cell-based expression platform as well as its own biobetter candidates through partnerships with renowned pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

About Cell Culture Service GmbH


For more than thirteen years, CCS has been supporting research departments of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with custom made functionally validated cell based reagents. CCS is one of the leading suppliers of recombinant cell lines, assay-ready frozen cells, qualified membranes, and proteins for high-throughput screening. Major pharmaceutical companies all over Europe and the USA rely on the custom products and services of CCS.

Contacts:


Wolfgang Kintzel
CEO
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln, Germany
fon +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 00
fax +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 01
info@cevec.com


Dr. Oliver Wehmeier
Managing Director
CCS Cell Culture Service GmbH
Falkenried 88
20251 Hamburg, Germany
fon +49 (0)40 47196560
fax: +49 (0)40 471 965 66
info@CellCultureService.com
 

Cevec raised an additional amount of € 2.8 million in a Series C financing led by Peppermint VenturePartners

Cologne, Germany, 24 October 2012 – CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH (CEVEC), the developer of a novel human expression system for the manufacturing of complex biopharmaceuticals and vaccines announced today that it raised an additional amount of € 2.8 million in a Series C financing led by Peppermint VenturePartners (PVP) via the new Charité Biomedical Fund. Additional financing was provided by Midas Group and existing investors Creathor Venture and NRW.Bank. The funds will be used to advance proprietary product developments in the areas of therapeutic proteins and the novel vaccine business of CEVEC.

Köln, 24.October 2012 – Die CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH (CEVEC), ein Entwickler von neuen Expressionssystemen auf Basis menschlicher Zellen zur Produktion von komplexen Biopharmazeutika und Impfstoffen, hat heute den Abschluss ihrer neuen Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von € 2,8 Mio. unter der Führung des von Peppermint VenturePartners (PVP) gemanagten Charité Biomedical Fund mitgeteilt. Weitere Investoren sind die Midas Gruppe, sowie die bestehenden Investoren Creathor Venture und NRW.Bank. Die eingeworbenen Mittel sollen zum Ausbau eigner Produktentwicklungen bei CEVEC in den Bereichen therapeutische Proteine und Impfstoffe eingesetzt werden.
 

Contact:
Wolfgang Kintzel
CEO
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln, Germany
fon +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 00
fax +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 01
info@cevec.com

CEVEC Licenses CAP Technology to Paragon Bioservices, Inc.

Cologne, Germany, August 2, 2012 / B3C newswire / - CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, the developer of a novel, market-leading human protein expression system derived from amniocytes, and Paragon Bioservices, Inc., a leading contract research and GMP manufacturing organization with a focus on the development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, announced a joint collaboration earlier today...

...whereby Paragon Bioservices would license and use CEVEC's know-how and patents (on CAP and CAP-T cell expression system) to develop stable cell lines and perform process development for the contract manufacturing of recombinant proteins and antibodies.

"We are very pleased to be working with Paragon Bioservices," said Wolfgang Kintzel, CEVEC's CEO. "Since they provide preclinical research and development services and protein production for many of the large pharmaceutical companies, we believe that our collaboration will inevitably benefit the research community at-large."

Paragon's CEO, Marco Chacón, PhD, agrees, "Even though our upstream developmental team has many years of experience in cell biology and bioprocess development, this is a highly competitive business. Everyone needs an edge to meet the outsourcing challenges of our clients. This valuable tool from CEVEC will assist us in offering clients a fully optimized human expression system that will express proteins with superior yields and in a shorter time frame than traditional methods. We look forward to a long relationship with CEVEC."

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 and located in Cologne, Germany, is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and producing therapeutic proteins, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies with human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC's novel proprietary and patent-protected human CAP® and CAP-T T expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules and various vaccines. CEVEC is licensing out its human cell-based expression platform as well as its own biobetter candidates through partnerships with renowned pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

About Paragon Bioservices, Inc.
Paragon is a Contract Research & GMP Manufacturing Organization (CMO) delivering research, development and manufacturing services. Paragon's focus is biopharmaceuticals, including recombinant proteins, viral vectors, vaccines, VLPs, bacteriophage and stem cells. Our clients include pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies and federal agencies.

Contacts:


Wolfgang Kintzel
CEO
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln, Germany
fon +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 00
fax +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 01
info@cevec.com


Marco A. Chacón, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Paragon Bioservices, Inc.
Baltimore, MD 21201
ph (410)975-4050 or (410) 975-4052
machacon@paragonbioservices.com or
sales-support@paragonbioservices.com

CEVEC Raises €6M to Grow CAP® Technol. Based Protein & Vaccine Business

Cologne, Germany, July 25, 2011 / B3C newswire / - CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, licensing its human CAP® Technology based expression system for proteins and vaccines, today announced the closing of a €6M financing round. NRW.BANK and Creathor Venture Fonds led this round which included the participation from current investors, a group of private and institutional investors and ERP Startfonds of KfW bank.The funding enables CEVEC to strengthen the growth of its protein and vaccine commercialization business of the proprietary CAP® Technology platform. CEVEC also intends to develop certain vaccines together with partners based on a further financing round, to be closed by the end of 2011.

The CAP® Technology platform comprises human CAP® and CAP-T™ expression systems and is used for the manufacture of complex biologics and therapeutic antibodies with human-like glycosylation and sialylation patterns. New data proved that the human CAP® technology is also an excellent platform for various vaccine production needs. Outstanding data obtained with the only independent available human cell system for various influenza strains and various other vaccine types show the broad range where the CAP system can be used.

Dr. Rainer Lichtenberger, CEO of CEVEC comments: “We are delighted for having the financial resources to making the human CAP technology the leading system in the global expression market. With Creathor Venture and NRW.BANK we have two first-class investors on board who value the unique strengths of our CAP® Technology.”

Wolfgang Kintzel, CCO of CEVEC states: “After the successful launch of CAP® und CAP-T™ in Europe, Asia/Pacific and the U.S. for use in the field of protein and antibody expression, the new excellent scientific data using the system for vaccine production open a truly outstanding new business opportunity for CEVEC. The human CAP technology will soon become the leading cell line for all vaccine and protein production needs.”

Karlheinz Schmelig, Chairman of CEVEC´s supervisory board and Managing Director at Creathor Venture and Dr. Aristotelis Nastos, NRW.BANK, add: “We see tremendous commercial opportunities for customers and CEVEC in the global pharmaceutical manufacturing markets with CEVEC’s high performance human expression system CAP. We also highly value the outstanding management and scientific team of CEVEC and their proven execution skills.”

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 and located in Cologne, Germany, is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and producing therapeutic proteins, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies with human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC’s novel proprietary and patent-protected human CAP® and CAP-T ™ expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules and various vaccines. CEVEC is licensing out its human cell-based expression platform as well as its own Biobetter Candidates through partnerships with renowned pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

About Creathor Venture

CREATHOR VENTURE invests in technology-oriented companies and entrepreneurs from the fields of life science, IT, telecommunication, new media, new materials, electronics, nanotechnology and clean tech.
CREATHOR VENTURE’s management team includes Dr. Gert Köhler, the founder of the former Technologieholding VC GmbH, as well as Ingo Franz and Karlheinz Schmelig. The team has been working in early-stage venture capital for 20 years. During that time more than 200 technology companies have been financed and over 20 IPOs as well as numerous trade sales have been conducted.
Extraordinarily successful companies that the partners have managed from the first round of financing to IPO include Micronas (SMI), SEZ (SMI), Intershop (Prime Segment), Infovista (NASDAQ, Nouveau Marché) and ITN Nanovation (Prime Segment).

About NRW.BANK

NRW.BANK is the state development bank of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Its mission is to support its owners - the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the Regional Associations of Westphalia-Lippe and the Rhineland - in the completion of important structural policy tasks. Headquartered in Düsseldorf and in Münster, the Bank supports the regional economy, the municipalities and the people of NRW with the full range of credit products from the development programs of the state, the federal government and the EU to equity and debt financing alternatives.

For business start-ups and SMEs in North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW.BANK uses customized public promotion and equity finance products. The Bank aims to constantly improve the financing situation of this target group. For this purpose NRW.BANK has aligned its equity capital products with companies’ lifecycles and their resulting requirements.


Contact:
Wolfgang Kintzel
Chief Commercial Officer / Geschäftsführer
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln
Germany
fon +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 00
fax +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 – 01

kintzel@cevec.com

CEVEC and Catalent Pharma Solutions Offer Joint Cell Line Development Service

Cologne, Germany, June 16, 2011 / B3C newswire / – CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, the German developer of a novel, market leading human protein expression system derived from amniocytes, and Catalent Pharma Solutions, a leading global drug development and delivery solutions provider, announced today a joint commercial cell line development service for pharma and biotech customers worldwide.

The offering combines the benefits of CEVEC’s human cell line, CAP-Technology, with Catalent’s unique GPEx® (Gene Product Expression) Technology to generate high expressing stable human cell lines in a much shorter time frame than traditional methods.

“We are very pleased to be working with Catalent and their truly unique technology to generate stable lines“ said Dr. Rainer Lichtenberger, CEO of CEVEC. “Several months of testing convincingly showed combining CAP cells and GPEx technology is a very powerful approach. We achieved yields exceeding 3 g/L for a very complex protein produced in our human production cell lines in a very short time frame” added Wolfgang Kintzel, Managing Director and CCO of CEVEC. “The combined offering is a very compelling value proposition for clients looking to outsource cell line development and potential downstream cGMP upscaling while looking for the highest quality using a human cell line.”

“Catalent has been collaborating with customers and suppliers to accelerate biologics development for more than ten years. This exciting collaboration with CEVEC will offer biotech companies developing recombinant proteins and antibodies the advantage of two technologies in one system, enabling them to get a clone candidate in less than 5 months and significantly reducing their time to clinic” stated Scott Houlton, President, Development & Clinical Services. “The GPEx technology has been used to express more than 380 different molecules and our integrated development and manufacturing services allow us to take our customers through their clinical trials in the fastest, most cost effective manner.”

For more information regarding GPEx® technology and Catalent’s biologics offering, please visit Catalent’s web site at www.catalent.com.

About Catalent Pharma Solutions

From drug and biologic development services to delivery technologies to supply solutions, Catalent Pharma Solutions has the deepest expertise, the broadest offerings and the most unique technologies in the industry. With over 75 years of experience, Catalent helps customers get more molecules to market faster, enhance product performance, and provide superior, reliable manufacturing and packaging solutions. Catalent employs approximately 8,000 people at 24 facilities worldwide and in fiscal year 2010 generated more than $1.7 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, NJ, USA.

Catalent. more products. better treatments. reliably supplied.™

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH

CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 was founded by a group of internationally renowned scientists and clinicians from the University of Cologne. Based on their experience and their longstanding collaborative work, they had perceived a lack of innovative expression systems for more efficient production of biologics such as recombinant proteins or gene therapy vectors. CEVEC’s novel proprietary human CAP® and CAP-T® expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex and difficult to express biopharmaceutical molecules with authentic human glycosylation patterns. CEVEC´s CAP technology is becoming also the gold standard for various vaccines production approaches. The immortalized cells are derived from primary human amniocytes and meet highest ethical standards. Already adapted to serum-free growth conditions, they can be very efficiently transfected with commercially available transfection reagents and are optimized to grow in a variety of flask/wave formats up to large-scale processing in bioreactors. CAP® and CAP-T® are trademarks of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, all rights reserved, CAP-T® not yet registered in all territories.

Contact

Wolfgang Kintzel

CCO / Geschäftsführer

CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH

Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62

D-51105 Köln

Germany

Tel. : +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 00

Fax: +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 01

kintzel@cevec.com

 

Sven Lee

VP Business Development Biologics

Catalent Pharma Solutions

8137 Forsythia St

Middleton, WI 53562

USA

Tel: +1 303-841-3923

sven.lee@catalent.com
 

Changes in CEVEC’s Supervisory Board

Cologne, Germany, December 21, 2010 / b3c newswire / – CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, the developer of the CAP® protein expression system derived from human amniocytes, today announced that Rainer Christine has joined its supervisory board.

Rainer Christine was the CEO and co-founder of the German-American biotools company amaxa and plays an active role in the life sciences related venture capital industry.

Under Rainer’s leadership amaxa grew from start-up in 1998 to a full-fledged and profitable life science company with strong scientific and commercial activities, 160 staff in Europe and the US, and more than EUR 100 million in cumulative sales. In 2008, amaxa was successfully sold to Lonza, a global supplier to the life-science industry.

At the same time, Gangolf Ehlen, previous Chairman of CEVEC’s supervisory board and lead investor from Venture Capital Beteiligungen Sparkasse KölnBonn, will resign from the CEVEC board to pursue a new role at Sparkasse KölnBonn. New chairman of the board will be the current vice-chairman Karlheinz Schmelig, Managing Partner at current lead investor Creathor Venture.

„CEVEC is delighted to have secured the services of Rainer Christine. With his experience and recognition as a high-profile Life Sciences entrepreneur he joins as a very valuable addition to our board“ stated Rainer Lichtenberger, Managing Director / CEO of CEVEC . Wolfgang Kintzel, Managing Director / CCO added: „We are also extremely grateful to Gangolf Ehlen for his outstanding commitment for CEVEC over the last years and wish him all the best for his new assignment at Sparkasse KölnBonn.“

The CEVEC supervisory board changes are accompanied by the successful first closing of a further financing round to expand CEVECs vaccine platform business.

CAP® cells are a human immortalized cell line derived from primary human amniocytes. CAP® cells grow in serum-free suspension cultures, allow for stable protein production and show human-like post-translational modifications including authentic human glycosylation patterns.

CAP® is a trademark of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, all rights reserved.

About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH - www.cevec-pharmaceuticals.com
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 was founded by a group of internationally renowned scientists and clinicians from the University of Cologne. Based on their experience and their longstanding collaborative work, they had perceived a lack of innovative expression systems for more efficient production of biologics such as recombinant proteins or gene therapy vectors. CEVEC’s novel proprietary human CAP® and CAP-T® expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex and difficult to express biopharmaceutical molecules with authentic human glycosylation patterns. The immortalized cells are derived from primary human amniocytes and meet highest ethical standards. Already adapted to serum-free growth conditions, they can be very efficiently transfected with commercially available transfection reagents and are optimized to grow in a variety of flask/wave formats up to large-scale processing in bioreactors. CEVEC offers flexible licensing arrangements for CAP® and CAP-T®. Additionally, co-development opportunities are available for selected complex therapeutic proteins made with the CAP-T® technology to address attractive target markets.

Contact

Wolfgang Kintzel
CCO / Geschäftsführer
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH

Gottfried-Hagen Straße 62
D-51105 Köln
Germany

Tel. : +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 00
Fax: +49 (0) 221-46 02 08 - 01

kintzel@cevec-pharmaceuticals.com