News

Almac will be attending the annual Bio Industry Association convention BIO 2010 where they will announce the extension of their unique site specific PEGylation technology to cover single domain antibody fragments.

In exemplifying the site specific PEGylation technology with single domain antibodies and interferons Almac have demonstrated that therapeutically important complex biological proteins can be engineered to offer viable candidates for development as therapeutic agents.

Currently available PEGylation technologies produce products which are PEGylated at multiple sites in an uncontrolled manner. This inevitably results in a heterogeneous population of PEGylated molecules resulting in a net decrease in potency compared to the un-PEGylated analogue. The Almac approach allows the specific PEGylation site to be selected and controlled and generates a homogeneous PEGylated product. The result is improved efficacy compared to existing PEGylation techniques leading to lower dose levels and consequently lower cost of goods; while still providing improved ADME profile due to the addition of the PEG moiety.

Commenting on the development of Almac’s site specific ligation technology  Almac Sciences’ President and Managing Director, Stephen Barr said ‘ The application of our unique ligation technology to the PEGylation of single domain antibody fragments further demonstrates the benefit of Almac’s state of the art peptide and protein engineering techniques for the improvement of drug products.’

Almac will be exhibiting at the BIO meeting in Chicago and will be available to provide more information on site specific PEGylation at booth 5205.

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For further information contact:

Robert Grundy
Director Research Alliances
T: +44 (0) 28 3839 5794
E: robert.grundy@almacgroup.com  
T +44 (0)28 3833 2200

Tristan Jervis
Account Director
De Facto Communications
T: +44 (0)207 861 3838
E: t.jervis@defacto.com

Notes for Editors:

 · Site specific PEGylation dedicated technical presentations and supporting data are available on request to sciences@almacgroup.com 

·  To find out more about Almac’s site-specific PEGylation visit www.almacgroup.com/peg

About Almac Group:

Almac is a financially stable, privately owned organisation with over 30 years experience, it provides integrated development solutions to over 600 customers worldwide including all the world leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Their services include R&D, translational genomic services; API manufacture; formulation development; clinical trial supply and technology (IVRS/IWRS & ePRO) and commercial-scale manufacture.

The company has over 2,600 employees and is headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, where it was awarded “Business of the Year 2009”.  US operations are based in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California.  Construction of the company’s new $120m North American Headquarters in PA started in July 2008 and will be completed in 2010.

For more information about the Almac Group, please visit www.almacgroup.com or e-mail info@almacgroup.com.