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Press Releases
DUBLIN, Ohio, Sept. 21, 2006 – Cardinal Health, the leading provider of products and services supporting the health-care industry, today announced it has entered a feasibility agreement with Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), acting through its Wyeth Pharmaceuticals division, to develop cell lines using Cardinal Health’s Gene Product Expression (GPEx®) cell line engineering technology.
Cardinal Health will use its patented GPEx® technology to engineer cell lines that express two undisclosed biopharmaceutical molecules in experiments that will determine if the GPEx® approach is a feasible augmentation to Wyeth’s current production methods. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Wyeth has taken a leadership position among major pharmaceutical companies to seriously move into large molecule therapeutics and has a great track record with biopharmaceutical R&D, manufacturing and commercialization,” said Paul Weiss, PhD, president of Cardinal Health’s biopharmaceutical development services center. “We feel confident that the speed and high expression capabilities of our GPEx® technology will be attractive to Wyeth as they evaluate additional platforms to rapidly and cost-effectively produce biopharmaceuticals.”
In addition to enabling rapid cell line development and availability of candidate gene products, the GPEx® technology is well suited for both efficient pilot and large-scale production of antibodies and other therapeutic recombinant proteins.
About GPEx® Technology
Nature Biotechnology last year estimates that there are approximately 500 biopharmaceuticals currently in clinical development. With existing technology, it can take as long as 18 months to develop the transgenic cell lines needed to produce these complex molecules. The creation of these cell lines is a crucial step required before sufficient quantities of the protein or antibody can be produced to perform clinical trials. GPEx® can generate stable cell lines that exhibit significantly higher levels of expression than those cell lines generated by standard methods and can achieve this in as little as six months.
About Cardinal Health
Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH) is an $81 billion, global company serving the health-care industry with a broad portfolio of products and services. It manufactures, packages, and distributes pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, offers a range of clinical services and develops automation products that improve the management and delivery of supplies and medication for hospitals, physician offices and pharmacies. Through this diverse offering, Cardinal Health delivers integrated health-care solutions that help customers reduce their costs, improve efficiency and deliver better care to patients. Ranked No. 19 on the Fortune 500, Cardinal Health employs more than 55,000 people on six continents. More information about the company may be found at www.cardinalhealth.com.