Scarab Genomics Awarded Patent for Improved Purification of Vaccine Carrier Protein

Scarab Genomics LLC is pleased to report the allowance of US Patent 11,174,284, “Purification of CRM 197 from bacteria”.

CRM 197 is a “vaccine carrier protein” that is widely used to enhance the effectiveness of so-called “conjugate vaccines”, for example Pfizer’s Prevnar® and GSK’s Menveo® vaccines, which protect against pneumonia and meningitis respectively. CRM 197 improves the effectiveness and longevity of such vaccines. However, CRM 197 is difficult and expensive to produce and to purify. Scarab’s proprietary core technology, branded “C-Flow™”, has addressed production challenges by making the production process continuous with improved yields. Nevertheless, a remaining factor contributing to the high cost of CRM 197 is the difficulty in purifying the protein. Scarab’s latest patent solves key problems in purification, further improving overall production efficiency and lowering costs.

Key to C-Flow™ production is the company’s Clean Genome® E. coli set of engineered bacteria. E. coli strains normally used for biopharmaceuticals production cannot sustain high levels of production indefinitely. Moreover, these strains contain dozens of genetic elements that can compromise production, including viruses and some elements (“Insertion Sequences”) that may be able to integrate into the human genome. All of these have been removed from Clean Genome® E. coli, along with many nonessential genes, creating bacteria with more than 20% of the genome removed. These bacteria produce more efficiently, more reliably, more safely and indefinitely. Pairing CRM 197 production by C-Flow™ with the new enhanced purification scheme is poised to address the high costs of this vaccine carrier and to make the material more readily available to the many companies now developing new conjugate vaccines.

Scarab Genomics LLC is a privately held company whose mission is to create value by commercializing a bacterial production platform that yields the highest quality protein and nucleic acid biopharmaceuticals at the lowest cost.