Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc.
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc. thinks its manufacturing methods, which utilize Pichia yeast, can overcome a number of the key challenges that companies currently encounter when producing antibodies in mammalian cells. Alder has made genetic mutations so that the yeast manufacture antibodies without any attached sugar groups. These a-glycosylated antibodies will be able to treat diseases where antigen neutralization vs. outright cell killing is sufficient to get a therapeutic effect.