Evercyte and VTU Technology collaborate on development of recombinant media supplements

Vienna and Grambach/Graz, Austria: – Evercyte GmbH, the leading provider of immortalized human primary-like cells and VTU Technology, the globally acting protein expression expert announced today that they have entered into a collaboration agreement on the development of recombinant media supplements for cell culture applications. The first conjointly developed recombinant product – Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor 165 (VEGF 165) has been recently launched with further targets in the pipeline.

The two companies have joined forces to develop recombinant media supplements such as growth factors and cytokines with constant high quality at attractive prices meeting today´s demand on cell culture media additives. Recombinant products will be produced by VTU based on its proprietary high-productivity Pichia technology facilitating the manufacturing of media supplements at competitive prices. Protein production processes at VTU are designed to deliver constant high quality of protein products.Precise, reproducible and relevant in-vitro cell-based assays performed by Evercyte guarantee constant high quality of each production batch. Using a proliferation assay based on continuously growing, highly differentiated endothelial cells (HUVEC/TERT2), Evercyte could show that the new product VEGF165 clearly outperforms currently available products regarding operational stability. A feature that is of utmost importance for sustainable cell culture. VEGF 165 is an important growth factor with high physiological and clinical relevance accordingly used in diverse biological in-vitro tests.

“Due to limitations in the availability of media supplements with constant product quality at reasonable prices we were seeking for interesting alternatives. Together with VTU´s expertise in recombinant protein production, we are now able to offer high performance products with constant quality and stability. We are very excited and are looking forward to the launch of further outstanding cell culture products addressing the needs of our customers”, said Dr. Regina Grillari, CTO of Evercyte. “Recombinant media supplements will be available along with our cell lines.”

“Evercyte´s expertise in the field of cell culture, its excellence in the development of cell-based assays and the existing network to the cell culture community qualifies Evercyte to be the perfect partner for the development of superior recombinant products for cell culture”, said Dr. Thomas Purkarthofer, Head of Business Development at VTU Technology. “Having Evercyte on board we are able to transform existing demands into products with improved quality parameters such as lot-to-lot consistency, product efficacy and stability.”

About Evercyte

Evercyte is the leading provider of immortalized human primary-like cells as well as novel production cell lines and is the partner of choice for innovative cell based assays in the field of pharma and biotech.

The core technology used for the establishment of these highly relevant human cell lines relies on the reactivation of the human telomerase enzyme using hTERT. Evercyte has made significant progress in expanding their catalogue of readily available cell lines which by now includes cells of renal (RPTEC/TERT1), skin (fHDF/TERT166), lung (HBEC3-KT) or endothelial (HUVEC/TERT2) origin.

Founded in 2011, the Vienna-based company successfully offers tools and the know-how necessary for the establishment of standardized high-throughput target identification and drug screening strategies, for toxicity studies, or for efficacy testing from statistically relevant numbers of donors. Visit us at: www.evercyte.com

About VTU Technology

VTU Technology, a leading contract research and development company, offers the broadest toolbox and most versatile technology platform available for Pichia pastoris recombinant protein production. VTU develops high performance expression strains and economically viable protein production processes for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, enzymes and various other recombinant proteins.

Headquartered in Grambach/Graz, Austria, VTU Technology is a private company and a subsidiary of VTU Holding, an Austrian enterprise that combines several technology and engineering companies in chemistry, pharma & life science. The VTU group currently counts more than 420 highly qualified people working in several subsidiaries in different European countries. From 2013 to 2015, the VTU group was able to boost its turnover from 40 million euros to 72 million euros. More information: www.vtu-technology.com, www.vtu.com