Thermo Fisher Scientific and Symphogen Collaborate to Develop Protein Analysis Workflows

Thermo Fisher Scientific announced on Oct. 29, 2018 that it is entering into a collaboration with a clinical-stage antibody oncology-focused company, Symphogen, which is aimed at delivering validated, platform workflows for simplified characterization and quality monitoring of complex therapeutic proteins.

This two-year partnership further strengthens the companies’ relationship, which has been ongoing for 10 years, and will involve the development of protein analysis workflows that can be used to speed up drug development for biopharma innovators, biosimilar manufacturers, contract research organizations, and contract development and manufacturing organizations.

Under the terms of the agreement, Symphogen will use the Thermo Scientific Q Exactive Plus Orbitrap liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) system with BioPharma Option to create, test and validate platform workflows for intact and native mass analysis of therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) mixtures. In addition to this, there will be an emphasis placed upon progressing automated multi-attribute method workflows to be used for monitoring critical quality attributes of proteins using high-resolution accurate-mass mass spectrometry in a quality control environment.

"The growing demand for more targeted and personalized treatment modalities results in the development of increasingly complex drug products, requiring research and development of advanced workflows to monitor their structure, manufacturing variation, and quality," said John Rontree, senior director pharma & biopharma, chromatography and mass spectrometry, Thermo Fisher Scientific, in a press release. "The collaboration with Symphogen, in addition to our commitment to the opening of Global Customer Solution Centers, will enable us to jointly leverage our established mass spectrometry technology, along with the expertise of our customers, to develop and implement novel, easy-to-use analytical strategies for complex mAb mixtures needed by drug manufacturers to drive the development of new therapies for cancer patients."

"Through this collaboration, we can leverage the knowledge and world-class technology provided by Thermo Fisher to effectively address our needs," added Dan Bach Kristensen, PhD, principal scientist, Symphogen, in the release. "The exceptional spectral resolution enabled by the Q Exactive BioPharma mass spectrometry platform means we now have a highly powerful tool for simple, reliable characterization and quality monitoring of complex biopharmaceutical products."

Source: Thermo Fisher Scientific