Wood Labs Receives $1M DARPA Grant To Improve Drug Manufacturing Efficiency
The intein-based protein purification system developed by Wood Labs has become a core component of a two-year, $8M federal contract that seeks to create a laptop-sized biopharmaceutical factory capable of delivering a single dose of virtually any protein therapeutic in less than 24 hours. The device will be developed under a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), by a team led by Govind Rao, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore Count; Krishna Vattem, of ThermoScientific Inc.; Peter Latham, of Latham BioPharm Group; and an array of students, scientists and industry consultants.
The envisioned biopharmaceutical micro-factory is designed to provide point-of-care biopharmaceutical manufacturing, effectively eliminating the large bioreactors and months of time that are usually required to produce these highly complex therapeutics. If successful, the technology will enable soldiers in the field to make these drugs on demand, without the need to carry refrigeration equipment. In the private sector, the availability of such a device would revolutionize the way these drugs are discovered, developed and manufactured. A key difficulty in developing such a device is the requirement for a highly general and reliable method to purify the products as they are synthesized within the device. Extremely high purity is required so that the final dose of each drug will be safe to inject into patients without the risk of an immune response. It is this goal that relies on Professor Wood's intein-based protein purification platform. He has been awarded $1M of the contract to adapt these methods for the eventual device.
Rao, principal investigator and director of University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Center for Advanced Sensor Technology, said the technology would “completely revolutionize the manufacture of biologics.” He compared the shift to computer technology's shift from room-sized mainframe computers to laptops and smart phones.
The protein purification system would be a radical improvement on existing processes, since protein-based drugs are typically synthesized by living cells in very large tanks filled with thousands of gallons of culture media. The drug must then be extracted from the cells and purified before being delivered to hospitals and pharmacies. The entire process can take weeks to complete, where the purification process is typically tailor-made to each product protein and can require a dozen or more steps. Wood's technology provides a general method that can be applied to any target protein, providing a single core platform for the dozens of products that the device will eventually produce. As Wood puts it, "The potential impact of this device in medicine is only exceeded by its potential to accelerate pure research. It will allow scientists to immediately move from the discovery of a new gene to the study of its product, without the lengthy delays associated with developing a purification process for the gene product."
The ability to efficiently manufacture complex drugs on site could also lead to paradigm shifts in personalized medicine, pure research, and the way biopharmaceuticals are manufactured and distributed. Wood goes on to speculate that "the ability to produce single-dose protein drugs at minimal expense will allow the development of highly specific therapeutics for very small patient populations. These drugs have been impossible to develop economically in the past, but this device may enable truly personalized medicine, providing relief to those who have previously been left untreated."
[These views are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.]
The project will be considered for an additional two years of funding pending results of the initial two-year effort.
For more details on this exciting award, please read this story as well!
