Newsletter January 2009

Welcome to the first 2009 issue of our quarterly newsletter!

Protéus has passed the 10 year mark in 2008, an important milestone for every biotechnology company. Protéus' success is largely due to our capacity to innovate and this is why we celebrated "10 years of innovation @ Protéus" in June.

Demonstrating this strength in innovation, Protéus has been awarded new patents in 2008 and filed new applications for our technologies and for products co-developed with our partners (see the "patent news" section below). In particular, Protéus has made a significant step in protein immunogenicity assessment, leading to the filing of a new patent application to cover Immuno'line™ technologies.

Other highlights for 2008 have been the launch of our two new websites: www.proteus.fr and www.proteus-psi.com and the extension of our service offering PSI to include services such as insect cell expression.

Last but not least, 2008 has also seen the signing of major alliances and research agreements in strategic industrial sectors: healthcare, chemistry, environment and energy - reaffirming Protéus' excellence in these key areas.

Even though 2009 starts with a major downturn for the global economic situation, we believe that Protéus' unique capabilities in protein R&D and industrial experience make us, more than ever, a partner of choice for industry.

We wish you every success for 2009.

Every protein has the potential to be immunogenic, i.e. to induce the production of antibodies. For therapeutic proteins, immunogenicity is a serious issue as it can lead to inactivation of the biotherapeutic or to more severe disorders such as autoimmunity.
Protéus, in collaboration with immunology experts at the CEA, has developed Immuno’line™, a range of technologies and services for early evaluation of immunogenicity in Human.
The CEA has gained its expertise through the design of vaccines or allergens for desensitisation, and the study of biologics. Protéus has leveraged this over 10-year-experience to build robust and high performance immunogenicity testing services. A patent application resulting from this fruitful collaboration has just been filed in December 2008.

Immuno'line™ has been extensively validated through a study on marketed therapeutic proteins. The correlation with clinical data is excellent.

The technology is available to test the immunogenicity of your proteins through Protéus' Immuno'line™ range of solutions, including T-cell activation assays, HLA binding assays and immunogenicity engineering.
Immuno'line™  services have been designed to bring you clear insights on the immunogenicity of your proteins and help your decisions.

Meet Protéus at these events:

Chemical & Biochemical Wood Valorization:
Solutions for New Materials and Products?
A “Wood Intelligence” conference
and a Chemistry for a sustainable development® Project
3 & 4 February 2009
Epinal, France 
Site Web

BioSquare 2009
March 9-11, 2009
Lyon, France
Website

Bio-Europe Spring 2009
March 16-18, 2009
Milan, Italy
Website

Also, Meet PCAS Biosolution at these events:

InformEx 2009
January 27-30, 2009
San Francisco, CA, USA
Exhibition: Booth #1506
Technology Showcase: Tuesday Jan. 27, 10:40, room #300
Website

As always Protéus has had an intense IP activity in 2008. Here are the most remarkable highlights of Q4 2008:

Delivery of a patent 
Patent EP1727909 entitled "METHOD AND TEST-KIT FOR THE DETECTION AND QUANTIFICATION OF ORGANISMS" has been granted to Protéus. The technology it covers has been co-developed in partnership with Goldschmidt GmBH, a member of the Evonik Group and a leader in interfacial chemistry.

New patent application on Immuno'line™ technologies
Protéus has filed a new patent application entitled "PROCEDE D’EVALUATION DE L’IMMUNOGENICITE DES PROTEINES", covering a process for robust and reliable evaluation of immunogenicity. This technique is particularly relevant to rank therapeutic protein candidates according to their immunogenicity.
This patent is the result of the fruitful collaboration established with the CEA since 2006.

New patent application on an optimised enzyme for second generation biofuel production
Within the frame of the ANR project n°ANR-05-BIOE-11, Protéus and IFP have filed a new patent application on enzymes involved in cellulose hydrolysis. These new improved enzymes were obtained using the powerful directed evolution L-Shuffling™ method, developed and patented by Protéus.