Plasmid production a plus for Polyplus

Polyplus has added transgene plasmid engineering services for viral vector manufacturing, which it says allows customers to get their gene therapies to market quicker.

The French biotech claims that since acquiring DNA design and production services firm e-Zyvec in February, it has focused on providing more advanced levels of solutions to support its client base.

By using e-Zyvec’s technology “the plasmids are assembled de novo, from a library of DNA bricks, removing the use of standard plasmid backbones that contain undesired useless and potentially harmful DNA sequences. This assembly method is highly flexible and gives us endless possibilities for plasmid design,” Laure Robert, product manager at Polyplus told us.

Polyplus employees. Image C/O Polyplus

The expanded plasmid services can be used individually or as an addition to the industry standard PEIpro and FectorVIR-AAV reagents and kits for gene therapy and viral vector production.

According to Polyplus, an online portal named D-Zyvec enables potential customers to initiate a project and start drawing their ideal plasmid. Polyplus employees then evaluate feasibility and advance design. Furthermore, the plasmids can be available in a period of only two weeks.

Added advantages

Robert said that from a company point of view, the advantages of adding this to its service offerings is that it complements its “nucleic acid transfection reagent portfolio for cell and gene therapy. The streamlined integration and optimization of the e-Zyvec service for global customers reflects our focus on optimizing upstream process economics for viral-vector manufacturing. We are now able to support customers from the start of their project with the engineering of their transgene, up to process development to optimize AAV yields and quality, and through therapy commercialization with our GMP grade products.”

And from a customer point of view, the firm claims that the service will “contribute to accelerating their gene therapy development and go-to-market while choosing the most efficient plasmid for the delivery of their gene of interest,” as well as having the “capacity to address complex requests to accompany our customers in challenging projects and support them in innovation thanks to our strong expertise in molecular biology and our proprietary technology for DNA assembly.”

The firm cited the acquisition of e-Zyvec as an expansion of its team, which enables Polyplus to make us of facility space in Loos, France. Additionally, Robert said laboratories will be built at this site and hiring will take place to support ongoing plasmid DNA (pDNA) engineering.