Platform & Manufacturing Technologies

Platform technologies underpin the development of many successful biotech products, but these platform technologies can often become commercially valuable in their own right. From the development of PCR in the 1980s, to the more recent CRISPR methods and beyond, platform technologies are at the heart of many of the most important and valuable biotech patent portfolios.

We appreciate that improvements to manufacturing methods, especially for biologics including antibodies, gene and cell therapies, are often of great importance to our clients and their competitors. Upscaling production for clinical testing and commercialisation may require innovative developments. Inventions can also lie in downstream processes such as product purification, testing, storage and distribution. These technical challenges are especially acute for autologous cell therapies.

We understand that seemingly small enhancements to biologics manufacturing processes may be of very significant value. We have extensive experience of helping our clients to overcome the difficulties associated with protecting innovations in biotech manufacturing technologies.

Our Biotechnology team has assisted clients in the areas of directed evolution methods for protein engineering, large-scale production and purification of proteins, cells and viral vectors, single cell genetic analysis, mass cytometry, antibody and scaffold protein technology, transgenic animals and cell culture. For example, we have worked with Codexis for over a decade on its CodeEvolver® technology for enzyme evolution. By drawing on our team’s diverse technical backgrounds and specialised legal skills we help start-ups, growing businesses and global market leaders to meet their commercial objectives.