Novozymes in Bagsværd (Denmark) has just announced it has separated its biopharma activities into an independent company, called Albumedix.
Novozymes is almost purely industrial biotech, as the World’s leading enzyme manufacturer. However, they also have some expertise in Health, which has now budded off (like yeast!) to become a wholly owned subsidiary, Albumedix.
Albumedix is led by Novozymes’ CEO, Peter Rosholm, and will be headquartered in Lyngby (Denmark), with R&D and production facilities in Nottingham (UK), employing approximately 100 people.
Albumedix develops albumin-based products and technologies for advanced drug and vaccine formulation, extended drug half-life and improved drug delivery (using its Veltis delivery platform).
On the other hand, Recombumin, is Albumedix’s range of recombinant albumins, used in the pharmaceutical industry to stabilize drugs and vaccines. Recombumin is also an animal origin-free human albumin, produced by Novozymes’ proprietary Saccharomyces yeast strains.
In fact, it is the world’s first and only supply of commercial recombinant human albumin, approved for use in the manufacture of human therapeutics, and can be used to extend the half-life of pharmaceuticals to prolong the drugs’ effect.
Today, Albumedix has a growing pipeline of partner-driven drug candidates evaluating Veltis products and their potential therapeutic products.
For example, since 2006, Merck has used Albumedix’s solutions to produce two vaccines used to treat millions of children worldwide against measles, mumps, rubella and Chicken pox (Varicella zoster).
And in 2014, the Albumedix Veltis technology got its commercial breakthrough when GlaxoSmithKline launched a type II diabetes drug (Tanzeum and Eperzan) as albumin fusions of GLP-1 for the treatment of type II diabetes that allows for once weekly dosing, instead of daily.
This division and delegation of the Novozyme empire is therefore a good strategy to bring this technology to light and widen its expertise.