WACK­ER and Gear­box Bios­ciences announce stra­tegic col­lab­or­a­tion to advance plas­mid DNA man­u­fac­tur­ing technologies

High-qual­ity pDNA serves as a found­a­tion­al source of genet­ic inform­a­tion in the devel­op­ment of life-sav­ing ther­apies, yet cur­rent man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cesses face chal­lenges in terms of scalab­il­ity, effi­ciency, and cost-effect­ive­ness. By com­bin­ing WACKER’s expert­ise in GMP man­u­fac­tur­ing of bio­lo­gics, includ­ing pDNA, with Gear­box Bioscience’s innov­at­ive solu­tions for anti­bi­ot­ic-free plas­mid pro­lif­er­a­tion, this col­lab­or­a­tion seeks to address these chal­lenges while aim­ing to set new industry standards.

“We are thrilled to part­ner with Gear­box Bios­ciences to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion plas­mid DNA man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­no­lo­gies,” said Ral­ph Krafczyk, nuc­le­ic acids expert at WACK­ER R&D. ​“This col­lab­or­a­tion under­scores our com­mit­ment to con­tinu­ously enhance our pro­pri­et­ary PLAS­MITEC^® tool­box in order to provide even great­er bene­fits to our cli­ents, who devel­op cut­ting edge ther­apies that are aimed at improv­ing the life of patients worldwide.”

WACK­ER pre­vi­ously developed an anti­bi­ot­ic-free sys­tem for recom­bin­ant phar­ma­ceut­ic­al pro­tein, lever­aging its ESETEC^® (E. coli secre­tion tech­no­logy) plat­form. The joint effort with GEA will focus on innov­at­ive work­flows for anti­bi­ot­ic-free plas­mid DNA man­u­fac­tur­ing and dif­fi­cult-to-pro­duce pDNA products. By lever­aging the com­ple­ment­ary strengths of both part­ners, the col­lab­or­a­tion is focused on deliv­er­ing solu­tions that are more sus­tain­able than cur­rent tech­no­lo­gies, while also provid­ing super­i­or qual­ity and reduced timelines.

“We are excited to col­lab­or­ate with WACK­ER to bring newly developed tech­no­logy from the lab to indus­tri­al scale,” said Arvi Jõers, co-founder and CEO of Gear­box Bios­ciences. ​“Our pro­pri­et­ary Pop-Out-Plas­mid^® tech­no­logy is already in use in anti­bi­ot­ic-free pro­tein pro­duc­tion and now we are apply­ing it to plas­mid pro­duc­tion as well. Elim­in­at­ing the risk of spread­ing anti­bi­ot­ic res­ist­ance through pDNA is a great relief for reg­u­lat­ory agen­cies and society.”

The col­lab­or­a­tion is already under­way, with ini­tial mile­stones includ­ing the eval­u­ation of Gear­box Bios­ciences innov­at­ive Pop-Out-Plas­mid^® tech­no­logy with­in the PLAS­MITEC^® tool­box. Both part­ners are com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of innov­a­tion and col­lab­or­a­tion, with the shared goal of advan­cing the field of bio­lo­gics man­u­fac­tur­ing to improve the access­ib­il­ity of raw mater­i­als for the devel­op­ment and applic­a­tion of next-gen­er­a­tion ther­apies, and to facil­it­ate clin­ic­al trans­la­tion from bench to bed­side. The recently opened WACK­ER Bio­tech­no­logy Cen­ter at WACKER’s cent­ral research and devel­op­ment site in Munich offers excel­lent con­di­tions for this project.

About Wack­er Chemie AG

WACK­ER is a glob­al com­pany with state-of-the-art spe­cialty chem­ic­al products found in count­less every­day items, ran­ging from tile adhes­ives to com­puter chips. The com­pany has a glob­al net­work of 27 pro­duc­tion sites, 21 tech­nic­al com­pet­ence cen­ters and 46 sales offices. With around 16,600 employ­ees, WACK­ER gen­er­ated annu­al sales of around €5.7 bil­lion in fisc­al 2024.

WACK­ER oper­ates through four busi­ness divi­sions. The Sil­ic­ones and Poly­mers chem­ic­al divi­sions sup­ply products (sil­ic­ones, poly­mer­ic bind­ers) for the auto­mot­ive, con­struc­tion, chem­ic­al, con­sumer goods and med­ic­al tech­no­logy indus­tries. Biosolu­tions, the life sci­ences divi­sion, spe­cial­izes in bioen­gin­eered products such as bio­phar­ma­ceut­ic­als and food addit­ives. Poly­sil­ic­on pro­duces hyper­pure poly­sil­ic­on for the semi­con­duct­or and photo­vol­ta­ic industries.

For more inform­a­tion on WACKER’s bio­tech­no­logy busi­ness go to: www​.wack​er​.com/​b​i​o​l​ogics

About OÜ Gear­box Biosciences

Gear­box Bios­ciences is a start-up com­pany from Tartu, Esto­nia. The com­pany has developed a pro­pri­et­ary Pop-Out-Plas­mid tech­no­logy for anti­bi­ot­ic-free pro­tein and plas­mid pro­duc­tion. This tech­no­logy can elim­in­ate anti­bi­ot­ics from biopro­duc­tion and curb the spread of anti­bi­ot­ic res­ist­ance in the environment.

Gear­box Bios­ciences oper­ates by licens­ing out the Pop-Out-Plas­mid tech­no­logy to its part­ners, who then use it to pro­duce pro­teins or plas­mids. In addi­tion to being anti­bi­ot­ic-free, Pop-Out-Plas­mid tech­no­logy offers increased strain sta­bil­ity and inducer-free induc­tion of pro­tein production.

For more inform­a­tion on Gear­box Bios­ciences and Pop-Out-Plas­mid tech­no­logy go to: www.gearbox.bio