Octapharma Group and Fresenius Kabi Enter Into an Exclusive License, Development and Supply Agreement for a HESylated Recombina...( BAD HOMBURG Germany and LACHEN Switze...),Health

BAD HOMBURG, Germany and LACHEN, Switzerland, Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Octapharma Group and Fresenius Kabi have signed a License, Development and Supply Agreement regarding the use of Fresenius Kabi's HESylation® Technology to develop a HESylated recombinant protein.

Under the agreement, Fresenius Kabi will license its proprietary HESylation® Technology to Octapharma. This technology platform is based on hydroxyethyl starch ("HES") which will be combined with a recombinant protein from Octapharma's human cell-line platform -- this combination is intended to generate a therapeutic protein with a superior product profile.

Fresenius Kabi will seek to adapt and optimize the protein modification by its HESylation® Technology and will afterwards be responsible for providing the appropriate HES derivative to Octapharma. Under the agreement, Octapharma will oversee the further development and commercialization. Fresenius Kabi will receive up-front and milestone payments, research funding and royalties on sales for licensing of the HESylation® Technology.

Octapharma's human cell-line platform

Octapharma's core business is the development, production and sale of high quality human protein therapies from both human plasma and human cell lines. Over the last twelve years, Octapharma has successfully established the human HEK293F cell-line platform for the expression of a variety of recombinant therapeutic proteins on a commercial scale.

An investigational new drug application for Octapharma's human cell-line derived recombinant FVIII was filed in the U.S. in May 2008. Using a human cell-line expression system instead of e.g. hamster cell-lines is expected to result in possible advantages like improved protein functions, increased tolerability and the opportunity for reduced immunogenicity.

HESylation® Technology

HESylation® Technology is based on th
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