 | LemnaGene Espace Florentin 71, chemin du Moulin Carron 69570 Dardilly France Website: http://www.lemnagene.com/ |
LemnaGene SA, offers a new era in Biomanufacturing.
Created in October 2003, LemnaGeneTM is since July 2005 a fully owned subsidiary of Biolex Therapeutics.
LemnaGeneTM has obtained an ANVAR Grant from the French Research Ministry in 2003.
LemnaGeneTM is based in Lyon, France, the 8th largest economic region in Europe with a high density in Life Science activities.
LemnaGeneTM has signed a Research & Development Agreement with Bayer CropScience, BioScience, to investigate the expression of aprotinin in lemna.
In addition, LemnaGeneTM has secured several agreements with other Industrial Partners in the pharma and human/animal vaccine areas.
Lemna
Lemna is a unique PMP (Plant Made Protein) Platform meeting industrial requirements as well as safety concern. Lemna is a recent option that offers its own advantages compared to other plant species. Belonging to Lemnaceae, Duckweed is a group of small, free-floating, fresh water plants, used as feed and food, mostly in Asian countries. It is also used in North America for waste-water management.
Main Advantages of Lemna for the production of recombinant proteins:
Due to its easy clonal propagation on water containing salts using light and CO2, Lemna is a choice organism for the production of recombinant proteins. The Weizmann Institute, team of Meir Edelman and Avi Perl have designed unique conditions for the insertion of genes and the growth of Lemna to obtain high protein production.
Lemnaceae thus offer numerous advantages compared to other technologies used for biomanufacturing such as:
- Security and safety, for both the environment (all steps including the production, are done under confined conditions) and for human and animal since there is no risk of viral contamination;
- High productivity due to its rapid growth (doubling time is about two days) and a high protein content (45% of dry weight);
- Flexibility since production can be done during all year around and also production capacity can easily be adapted to the needs;
- Speed from access to the gene to the commercialisation;
- Low costs due to low capital investment and running costs.
Products
LemnaGeneTM is using its technology to produce several types of active ingredients dedicated to different market areas:
- Recombinant proteins for the pharmaceutical and veterinary industry;
- Recombinant vaccines for humans and animals;
- Feed additives such as enzymes or probiotics;
- Enzymes and monoclonal antibodies for diagnostics and laboratory reagents.
The active ingredient produced can be delivered in different formats:Pure: The active ingredient can be purified and used as drugs or vaccines;
Dry: Lemna can be dried and sold as a powder in the form of capsules or tablets; It can also be sprayed on feed for animals during the formulation process of the feed;
Fresh: Non-transgenic Lemna has been already sold as salads for human consumption and is widely used as animal feed in developing countries.
Source: LemnaGene
Editor's note: LemnaGene does not exist anymore.
