New Findings Demonstrate Technological Advances for Extending Serum Half-Life of Drugs Bound to Albumin

Novozymes Biopharma, part of Novozymes A/S, a world leader in bioinnovation, has announced new data on extending the serum half-life of albumin in vivo.

This compelling data set, recently presented at PepTalk 2014, demonstrates the potential of the company's half-life extension platform to deliver greater control of the therapeutic half-life of drug candidates, while showing how the technology can introduce the possibility for monthly dosing.

"This data represents the most promising insight yet that Novozymes' half-life extension technology delivers the reduction in dosing frequency that we set out to deliver when we began developing the platform 5 years ago," comments Dermot Pearson, Marketing Director at Novozymes Biopharma.

He continues: "The level of excitement expressed by our customers in response to these achievements has been exceptional and we look forward to sharing our latest findings with wider industry experts who can benefit from this leading-edge data."

Through the modification of the human albumin molecule, Novozymes has altered the affinity of albumin to the FcRn receptor and has been able to demonstrate extended serum half-life of a range of albumin variants in vivo. The innovative technology provides drug developers with an attractive approach for optimizing the serum half-life of biopharmaceuticals. Already demonstrated in the fields of diabetes, hemophilia and neutropenia, the platform offers the potential to enhance patient quality of life through tailoring drug circulatory half-life to meet specific medical needs, while contributing improvements in compliance and healthcare costs.

A presentation on the new data can be downloaded from the posters and presentation section in the Information Centre at www.biopharma.novozymes.com