CHO Plus, Inc. (www.CHO-Plus.com), a prominent player in biopharmaceutical manufacturing technology, has received U.S. Patent No. 12,404,502 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This patent encompasses a novel technique for fusing yeast cells to create hybrid cells that yield greater amounts of recombinant protein per cell. Following the fusion process, these hybrid cells are sorted for elevated levels of endoplasmic reticulum, which is crucial for protein synthesis. The patent safeguards both the methodology for obtaining these cells and their composition.

Yeast serves various roles in the food industry, producing recombinant substitutes for egg proteins like ovalbumin, milk proteins such as casein, and flavor enhancers like leghemoglobin and myoglobin. Additionally, yeast is pivotal in the pharmaceutical sector for the production of therapeutic agents including insulin and vaccines. It is also utilized to manufacture industrial silk, metal-binding proteins, and enzymes like amylase, and in industrial fermentation processes. Larry Forman, Founder, CEO, and inventor of this technology at CHO Plus, remarked: "We continue to develop and build out our cell engineering technologies. Now we have an offering that could improve productivity for food ingredients and other industrial products via engineered yeast cells." Recent findings from CHO Plus indicate that their engineered CHO cells can generate up to 10-fold more therapeutic antibodies compared to un-engineered cells, while their engineered HEK-293 cells can produce up to 20-fold more AAV vectors, achieving up to 55% full capsids prior to purification.

With a commitment to innovation and collaboration, the company aims to enhance the production of therapeutic proteins and gene therapy vectors to tackle various clinical challenges. "We continue to attract interest in our mammalian cell technologies, such as for CHO cells and HEK-293 cells. This patent represents a new opportunity, and we seek a major funding and technology partner to take the lead in using engineered yeast cells for food or pharmaceutical production," Forman added.