MEDICAGO & SNC LAVALINHello!
It's not a recent news (june 2010) but i know they'r (SNC) working on the project for the platform. It's an important part of the project and development for the massive production.
QUEBEC CITY, June 8 /CNW/ - Medicago Inc. (TSX-V: MDG), a biotechnology company focused on developing highly effective and affordable vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), today announced that it has been awarded $1.77 million in funding by Quebec's Consortium for Drug Discovery ("CQDM"), conditional upon the signing of a research agreement between parties. Medicago will use these funds to develop the VLPExpress, a high throughput platform that will accelerate the Company's
discovery and development of new vaccines by rapidly expressing, purifying and testing candidate VLPs. This multidisciplinary project will be carried out in collaboration with SNC-Lavalin Pharma, a division of SNC-Lavalin, Dr. Alain Garnier from Laval University and Dr. Brian Ward from McGill University.
"We are pleased to have been selected by the CQDM for this funding which launches the next phase in the development of our VLP vaccine technology and will ultimately allow us to expand our product pipeline," said Andy Sheldon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Medicago. "VLPs represent one of the most promising approaches for the production of vaccines. There is a need for new cost-effective technological solutions to speed-up and streamline the development of VLP vaccines from early research to clinical testing. By scaling down and automating our current manufacturing system, this new VLPExpress platform will reduce the time and costs of screening antigens and allow us to identify the best candidates to bring forward."
Medicago's VLPExpress platform will identify the best VLP-based antigen presentations for a disease-causing agent within 10 weeks. Each antigen or antigen variants will be rapidly screened for their potential to provide
protection. The Company will use a scaled-down transient technology which will offer a rapid and low-cost production system with the capacity to accelerate development of new vaccines. In addition, the use of VLPs for antigen surface display will allow for the full exploitation of the immunogenic potential of the best antigens. The combination of these technologies in the VLPExpress platform will allow researchers to express numerous target proteins of a pathogen to build a library of all possible VLPs in a short timeframe. The best targets will then be characterized, produced and purified for further analysis. By identifying the best antigens early in the process, researchers can save years and millions of dollars in research costs.
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Résumé en français;
Le Consortium québécois sur la découverte du médicament ("CQDM") lui a attribué une subvention de 1,77 M$
Medicago utilisera cesfonds pour mettre au point le VLPExpress, une nouvelle plateforme à haut débit
qui permettra à la société d'accélérer la découverte et la mise au point denouveaux vaccins en exprimant, purifiant et testant rapidement des VLPcandidates. Ce projet multidisciplinaire sera réalisé en collaboration avec
SNC-Lavalin Pharma, une division de SNC-Lavalin, le Dr Alain Garnier de l'Université Laval, ainsi que le Dr Brian Ward de l'Université McGill.
"Nous nous réjouissons d'avoir été choisis par le CQDM pour bénéficier de ce financement qui lance la prochaine phase de la mise au point de notre technologie de vaccin VLP et qui nous permettra ultimement d'élargir notre portfolio de produits", a déclaré Andy Sheldon, président et chef de la direction de Medicago. "Les VLPs représentent l'une des approches les plus prometteuses pour la production de vaccins. Nous avons besoin de nouvelles solutions technologiques économiques pour accélérer et simplifier la mise au point de vaccins VLP, depuis le début de la recherche jusqu'aux essais cliniques. En réduisant et en automatisant notre système de fabrication actuel, cette nouvelle plateforme VLPExpress nous permettra de réduire le temps et les coûts de sélection d'antigènes et nous permettra de déterminer les meilleurs candidats à mettre de l'avant."
NB