Primrose Bio launches following merger of
Primordial Genetics and Pelican Technology Holdings with
$15 million in funding from Ligand
Pharmaceuticals
SAN
DIEGO, Sept. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Primrose
Bio, Inc., a stand-alone private biotechnology company
focused on developing state-of-the-art discovery and production
systems for protein and nucleic acid medicines, has been
established as a result of the combination between Primordial
Genetics, Inc. and Pelican Technology Holdings, Inc. As part of the
transaction, Ligand Pharmaceuticals has contributed $15 million in funding.
Primrose Bio combines the Function Generator™ and Pelican
Expression Technology® (formerly Pfenex Expression
Technology®) platforms of its founding companies to
create an innovative system to engineer and enhance biological
productivity to enable the next generation of therapeutics.
Function Generator systematically generates tens of millions of
novel genes in an ultra-high-throughput fashion, which enables the
discovery of proteins and microbes with improved function. The
Pelican Expression Technology platform is a robust and scalable
protein production system used in five approved medicines that
enables large-scale production of therapeutics and proteins,
especially those that are complex and are difficult to produce.
"We are thrilled to combine two powerful technologies and two
talented teams to create a company that is well positioned to
deliver significant value to our pharmaceutical customers. Our
combined technologies harness the power of evolution at a speed and
scale that is unmatched by other synthetic biology companies," said
Dr. Helge Zieler, CEO of Primrose
Bio. "This platform will enable discovery and production of new
complex therapeutics and vaccines, and we are excited to provide
our partners with access to our expanded capabilities through this
merger."
Primrose Bio's technologies have been leveraged to launch Prima
RNApols™ and PeliCRM197®, two widely licensed
manufacturing and formulation solutions for biopharma companies
developing mRNA medicines and conjugate vaccines, respectively.
"We've found that nature is often smarter than we are, and our
platforms are designed to let biology do the heavy lifting. We
generate collections of novel microbes and proteins with several
orders of magnitude more genetic diversity than what is currently
feasible using other methods. This allows us to find microbes,
enzymes and proteins, with desirable characteristics that otherwise
would be missed using traditional methods," said Dr. Diane Retallack, President of Primrose Bio. "We
are at an exciting point at Primrose Bio, with more biopharma
companies using our technologies than ever before, and several
programs under development that can transform the biopharma
manufacturing industry."
Primrose Bio's initial focus areas include:
- Collaborate with the biopharma industry to optimize production
hosts, enzymes and proteins using our technologies as well as
support partners' process design and scale up needs;
- Commercialize Prima RNApols™ and PeliCRM197® to
enable mRNA medicines and conjugate vaccines, respectively;
- Develop transformational manufacturing methodologies, including
enzymatic oligonucleotide synthesis for use in oligo-based
therapeutics and enhanced microbial production of complex
therapeutic proteins, such as aglycosylated antibodies, antibody
derivatives and Fc fusions;
- Expand our technology beyond human health into sustainable
food, energy, industrial and consumer goods.
About Primrose Bio, Inc.
Primrose Bio was formed in
2023 with the merger between Primordial Genetics, Inc. and Pelican
Technology Holdings, Inc. Primrose Bio combines the Function
Generator™ and Pelican Expression Technology® platforms
to create a novel way of enhancing biological productivity to
enable the next generation of therapeutics. These combined
technologies are designed to create and express some of the largest
sets of genetic diversity available in the industry, to enable
customers to discover new biological molecules and cells that with
levels of productivity that were previously unachievable,
economically prohibitive, or otherwise inaccessible. Primrose has
leveraged its technology to create Prima RNApols™ and
PeliCRM197®, two manufacturing and formulation solutions
licensed to biopharma companies developing mRNA medicines and
conjugate vaccines, respectively. Several of the world's
leading pharmaceutical companies use Primrose Bio's technology,
including Merck, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Alvogen, Serum Institute of
India, Arcellx, Arcturus and
others. For more information, please visit
www.primrosebio.com.
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SOURCE Primrose Bio