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SundayViragen Announces That OVA(TM) System Results are Published in Leading U.S. Scientific Journal
Viragen Announces That OVA(TM) System Results are Published in Leading U.S. Scientific Journal
Viragen, Inc. (Amex: VRA; VRA.U; VRA.WS) and its collaborative partners in the field of avian transgenics, Roslin Institute and Oxford Biomedica Plc (LSE: OXB), today announced that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), a leading scientific journal, has published an article profiling the OVA(TM) System's ability to express two therapeutic proteins in the whites of eggs of transgenic hens. The OVA(TM) System is being developed as a novel, large-scale biomanufacturing alternative capable of cost-effectively expressing many types of therapeutic proteins. The article, entitled, "Oviduct-specific expression of two therapeutic proteins in transgenic hens," reports on the production of two protein drug candidates: a humanized monoclonal antibody being developed by Viragen for advanced malignant melanoma; and interferon beta-1a, which is currently marketed under two competing brand names for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as Avonex(R)* (Biogen Idec) and Rebif(R)** (Serono). Article Summary: Recent advances in avian transgenesis have led to the possibility of utilizing the laying hen as a production platform for the large-scale synthesis of pharmaceutical proteins. Ovalbumin constitutes more than half of the protein in the white of a laid egg, and expression of the ovalbumin gene is restricted to the tubular gland cells of the oviduct. Here we describe the use of lentiviral vectors to deliver transgene constructs comprising regulatory sequences from the ovalbumin gene designed to direct synthesis of associated therapeutic proteins to the oviduct. We report the generation of transgenic hens that synthesize functional recombinant pharmaceutical protein in a tightly regulated tissue-specific manner, without any evidence of transgene silencing after germ-line transmission. MORE |