Celliance Acquires Gene Expression Technology

Innovata plc has announced that Celliance Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Serologicals Corporation, has acquired its UCOE (ubiquitous chromatin opening element) gene expression technology for an undisclosed sum.

Innovata claims that, UCOEs improve the yield, consistency and stability of protein production in cultured mammalian cells, allowing simpler and quicker generation of proteins at small scale for drug discovery and research, as well as quicker and easier isolation of stable, highly productive cell lines suitable for larger-scale manufacture of protein therapeutics.

Further applications of the technology include gene therapy, transgenics and generation of cell lines for drug screening.

The technology is under licence to a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in North America, Europe and Japan including Medarex and Maxygen.

The UCOE technology had been identified as non-core to Innovata following a strategic review by its new management team earlier this year.

Kieran Murphy, Chief Executive Officer of Innovata, commented, “The divestment of our UCOE gene expression technology is a further step in the refocusing of Innovata on respiratory disease and inhaled therapies.”

“We are pleased to have found a buyer in Celliance, a world leading provider of products and services for the bioprocessing industry, where UCOE has the potential to add significant value to its product offering.”

David L. Bellitt, President of Celliance Corporation, added, “We are extremely pleased to be able to add the UCOE gene expression technology to our portfolio of bioprocess products for the biotechnology industry.”

“The UCOE technology will augment our cell line development and protein expansion capabilities, thereby improving our customers’ abilities to more efficiently manufacture recombinant proteins in large scale, while aiding in the development of the next generation of our customers’ therapeutic proteins.”