Cardinal Health, the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry, has entered a feasibility and commercial option agreement with Centocor Inc. to develop cell lines using Cardinal Health's gene product expression, GPEx cell line engineering technology. Cardinal Health will use its patented GPEx technology to engineer cell lines expressing undisclosed Centocor monoclonal antibodies.

According to a company release, Cardinal Health's GPEx technology enables rapid genetic engineering of stable mammalian cell lines. These cell lines are used to produce human proteins and antibodies, which belong to the rapidly growing class of medicines known as biopharmaceuticals.

"We are very pleased that Centocor, with their great depth of experience and success in the areas of both antibody R&D and commercialisation, has chosen to evaluate our GPEx technology with several of their antibodies. We have made great progress in developing both the GPEx technology, as well as our manufacturing capabilities, especially for antibodies, and are looking forward to proving our ability to rapidly engineer stable, high expressing cell lines for Centocor to evaluate," said Paul Weiss, president of Cardinal Health's biopharmaceutical development services centre in Middleton, Wisconsin.

In addition to enabling rapid cell line development and availability of candidate gene products, the GPEx technology is well suited for both efficient pilot and large-scale production of antibodies and other therapeutic recombinant proteins.

Through insertion of multiple copies of the gene, GPEx can generate, in as little as half the time required using traditional methods, stable cell lines that exhibit significantly higher levels of expression than those cell lines generated by other methods, added the release.

Cardinal Health has integrated the GPEx technology with clinical scale mammalian cell culture manufacturing to provide a more rapid way for its clients to bring biopharmaceutical products into clinical development.

Financial terms of the agreement between Centocor and Cardinal Health were not disclosed, and Centocor does have the option of expanding the collaboration depending on the evaluation of these first GPEx cell lines.

Cardinal Health Inc. is a global company serving the health-care industry with a broad portfolio of products and services. It manufactures packages and distributes pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, offers a range of clinical services and develops automation products that improve the management and delivery of supplies and medication for hospitals, physician offices and pharmacies.