China's BeiGene Selects SAFC CHOZN® Platform for Commercial Drug Development

ST. LOUIS, March 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma-Aldrich^® Corporation SIAL today announced that SAFC^® Commercial (www.sigma-aldrich.com/safc), its custom manufacturing services business unit, has entered a commercial sales and service contract with leading biopharmaceutical company, BeiGene (www.beigene.com). Located in Beijing, the innovative oncology company purchased SAFC's off-the-shelf, turnkey CHOZN cell line production platform and cell line engineering services to support discovery and commercial development of BeiGene's targeted oncology drug.

"The CHOZN Platform offers us a great deal of value through the ability to maximize the production of monoclonal antibodies and other recombinant-proteins used in our targeted oncology treatments," said Dr. Kang Li, Head of Biologics from BeiGene. "Reducing timelines are critical to every oncology development project. Our objective in selecting SAFC's CHOZN Platform and services was to shorten bioproduction times in early development and to obtain a manufacturing clone quickly with the highest protein quality specifications."

"Following last year's first commercial placement of the GS^-/- CHO cell line in the Asian markets, SAFC is seeing significant interest in using our CHOZN recombinant cell line development platforms in the region," said Kevin Gutshall, Global Senior Manager of the CHOZN Platform for SAFC. "The CHOZN Platform supports efficient innovation and the highest quality therapeutics. It offers a turnkey solution that is unmatched in the industry. Users simply identify and clone the genes for their therapeutic protein of interest into the CHOZN expression vector, and then employ the traditional cell line development strategies of transfection, selection and cloning. The CHOZN Platform is designed to deliver a robust producing clone - ready for manufacturing."

Enabled by Sigma-Aldrich's, CompoZr^® Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN) gene editing technology, the first commercially available glutamine synthetase (GS) knockout CHO line was brought to market in 2011. The full CHOZN Platform includes the CHOZN GS^-/- CHO cell line and an optimized set of cGMP-produced and chemically defined media and feeds.  In addition to the cell line, media, and feed, SAFC provides extensive user support, which includes working with customers on protocols - from transfection through to scale-up in bioreactors, as well as comprehensive cell-line safety testing and development history.

For more information about the CHOZN Platform, visit: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/safc-choznplatform.

About SAFC: SAFC Commercial, the custom manufacturing and services business unit of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, is recognized as a top 10 global specialty chemicals and biologics supplier. As a trusted manufacturer for the life science and high-technology industries, SAFC works closely with customers to resolve development challenges and accelerate the product pipeline using its global "Centers of Excellence" and dedicated manufacturing facilities. Its rich portfolio includes high-purity inorganic materials for high-tech applications, critical raw materials and extensive biologics safety-testing services for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, and complex, high-potent APIs and key intermediates for pharmaceutical manufacturing. For more information, visit www.sigma-aldrich.com/safc.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich, a leading Life Science and Technology company focused on enhancing human health and safety, manufactures and distributes 250,000 chemicals, biochemicals and other essential products to more than 1.4 million customers globally in research and applied labs as well as in industrial and commercial markets. With three distinct business units - Research, Applied and SAFC Commercial - Sigma-Aldrich is committed to enabling science to improve the quality of life. The Company operates in 37 countries, has approximately 9,300 employees worldwide and had sales of $2.79 billion in 2014. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.

©2015 Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC. All rights reserved. Sigma-Aldrich and SAFC are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC or its affiliates, registered in the U.S. and other countries.

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SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich Corporation