The biotechnology market is one of the biggest industries in the world. However, despite being the largest sector globally, there are still various segments that haven’t been tapped into, presenting opportunities for many companies. Biotechnology is defined as technology to upgrade or modify the whole part of a biological system for human welfare. Processes within the industry include microbiology, genetic engineering, biochemistry, and many others which can help humans recover or potentially eliminate a medical condition with proper treatment. While there are many various types of medical conditions, the market is seeing a large demand for therapeutic and diagnostic solutions such as red biotechnology, recombinant technology, and DNA sequencing.
According to data compiled by Variant Market Research, the global biotechnology market is projected to reach USD 726.8 Billion by 2025, as well as grow at a CAGR of 8.1 percent from 2017 to 2025.
One sector in particular within the biotechnology industry has emerged within the top segments. The monoclonal antibody market has quickly become a strong and popular industry due to demand for personalized medicine. According to Grand View Research, the global monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) market was valued at approximately USD 85.4 Billion in 2015 and is expected to reach USD 138.6 Billion by 2024. The sector is mainly being driven by increasing R&D to develop mAbs, coupled with supportive government initiatives. mAbs provide patients with targeted therapies, which is important because patients vary in how their bodies accept the treatment or therapy. Additionally, using mAbs for therapeutic purposes, including fewer adverse effects, homogeneity, specificity, and large-scale production are also bolstering the market.
“Antibody-derived biologics have become a major class of modern medicine, particularly in the fight against cancer and autoimmune diseases. Crucial to the successful translation of antibodies into therapies are highly efficient antibody discovery and cell line development pipelines,” said Frank F. Craig, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Sphere Fluidics, “Biopharmaceutical organizations are under increasing pressure to streamline their antibody discovery and cell line development processes, with unmet needs for increased throughput, shortened timelines, reduced costs, and improved proof of monoclonality.”
Pressure BioSciences, Inc. just announced “a collaboration with The Steinbeis Centre for Biopolymer Analysis & Biomedical Mass Spectrometry (“The Steinbeis Centre”), a German research organization. The collaboration is combining the unique capabilities of PBI’s patented pressure cycling technology (“PCT”) for sample preparation, protein characterization, and biotherapeutics quality control with the Steinbeis Centre’s innovative PROTEX-MS instrument for elucidating structural details of antibody interactions to create an instrument system to accelerate the development of new protein therapeutics and improve existing drug treatments.
The collaborative program will be directed by Dr. Michael Przybylski, Professor of Analytical Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of The Steinbeis Centre, who explained the selection of PBI’s PCT platform: “The high-quality digestion of proteins is an essential initial step in the discovery, analysis, and characterization of potential therapeutic proteins. In the past, we have not been fully satisfied with the results achieved when using traditional protein digestion procedures and instrumentation. However, with PBI’s proprietary PCT platform, we now achieve high quality and reproducible digestion of proteins. Consequently, we believe that PCT, in combination with our innovative PROTEX-MS system, could more rapidly lead to the discovery and development of biopharmaceutical treatments for a large number of diseases resulting in substantial improvements in patient care and outcomes.”
The PCT-PROTEX-MS platform will be used to elucidate critical details of how the immune response functions as the body defends against bacteria, viruses, and other harmful molecules, organisms and cells. When an immune response is generated, proteins called antibodies are produced that interact with specific molecules (“antigens”) presented by these invaders, by physically fitting and binding (like a key in a lock) with specific regions on these molecules (“epitopes”). Better characterization of these epitopes on specific antigens of the invaders, and how they bind to the antibodies that recognize them, provide valuable insights into how the immune system combats disease, and how to improve the development of targeted protein therapeutics. The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the use of targeted antibodies as effective protein therapeutics in auto-immune diseases, cancers and other life-threatening conditions.
Dr. Lazarev said, “Furthermore, the potential of this new platform in the rapid discovery of new targeted therapeutics and improvement of existing treatments tailored specifically to individual patients and their conditions offer great promise for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, arthritis, Crohn’s disease, transplant rejection and Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr. Bradford A. Young, Chief Commercial Officer of PBI concluded: “We are delighted to be collaborating with a research team of such global stature as The Steinbeis Centre to develop a new platform technology for the characterization of binding sites on antibodies and the potential development of new and/or better protein therapeutics. This work has very important clinical applications, as it may help to develop more effective protein drugs with reduced side-effects in cancer, auto-immune, neurodegenerative and other critical diseases and conditions. We are honored that Dr. Przybylski and his team have incorporated our proprietary PCT platform as a critical component of this innovative solution. The results of this collaboration will provide PBI with another valuable and broad application area for our Barocycler instruments, and we anticipate this new instrument system will be of great interest to both current and future customers in the monoclonal antibody therapeutics market, expected to reach $218.97 billion by the end of 2023 (Zion Market Research, 2018).”