Berlin, Germany, October 27th, 2011/ – Glycotope GmbH, a global leader in optimizing the glycosylation of biopharmaceuticals, has received the prestigious CPhI Innovation Gold Award. Among the 50 entrants in the competition, Glycotope was selected as the winner for the innovative nature and commercial impact of its GlycoExpressTM technology of human cell lines to develop and manufacture biopharmaceuticals with an improved glycosylation leading to potentially significant therapeutic and economic benefits. Dr. Steffen Goletz, CEO, CSO & Founder of Glycotope is “proud, that in winning the award, Glycotope is joining technological leaders such as Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., BASF, Novozymes A/S, DSM or Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences Inc.”
About Glycotope:
GLYCOTOPE, founded in 2001 in Berlin, focuses on the optimization and humanization of therapeutically relevant sugar structures on biopharmaceuticals known as glycosylation and on the development of innovative antibodies targeting glycostructures on cell surfaces. Biologics developed in Glycotope´s GlycoExpressTM technology of glycoengineered human cell lines receive a fully human and optimized glycosylation, leading to a largely improved activity, an elongated half-life time and/or reduced immunogenicity and hence important therapeutic benefits for a significantly increased number of patients. In addition, the GlycoExpress platform is superior in productions yields, product quality and reproducibility compared to other production platforms.
Glycotope´s product portfolio now encompasses a variety of antibodies and non-antibody biologics, 4 of which are currently in the clinical stage. This pipeline includes antibodies against novel targets for cancer therapy (e.g. GT-MAB 2.5-GEX™) and significantly improved versions of antibodies as well as other already marketed therapeutic proteins, so called Biobetters.
Together with Glycotope-Biotechnology in Heidelberg, Glycotope evolved into a leading integrated glycobiology company, covering all phases in drug development such as lead discovery and optimization, preclinical and process development, GMP production and clinical development. With more than 140 employees, the group has grown to one of the largest Biotech organisations in Germany.
About the CPhI Innovation Award
The internationally acclaimed CPhI Innovation Awards were established to recognise, celebrate and honour those companies and organisations that are breaking new ground in the pharmaceutical, contract services, packaging and biopharmaceutical. Entry categories are open to all exhibitors at the events and were expanded to reflect the zoned layout of the 2011 events. Submissions were accepted from the following areas: APIs, Custom Manufacturing, Intermediates, Excipients/Formulation, Fine Chemicals, Finished Dosage, Contract Services, Drug Delivery Systems and Biopharmaceuticals. When choosing the finalists, the judges looked for the innovations that encouraged the imagination and are commercially practical.
