Genovis Teams up with Waters to Deliver Enzymatic Workflows for the Biopharma Industry
The new collaboration between Genovis and Waters Corporation is intended to bring fast and easy analytical workflows for biopharmaceuticals by combining the SmartEnzymes™ portfolio from Genovis with the unique instrumentation from Waters™. The lab work has already started, and we got a quick word with Andreas Nägeli, one of the scientists at Genovis contributing to this collaboration.
What is your role at Genovis?
I work as a Senior Application Scientist and I develop novel workflows using our SmartEnzymes to study complex biopharmaceuticals in new ways.
What is your experience with Waters instrumentation?
Since the beginning of this year, we have had the pleasure of working with the BioAccord™ LC-MS System and the Andrew+ pipetting platform, and we have already generated results with our newest product, the fucosidase FucosEXO™. The BioAccord™ LC-MS System fits perfectly with our enzymes in making complicated analysis simpler and more robust. An example is the defucosylation assays we performed using FucosEXO that show the removal of fucose residues from complex glycoproteins. The LC-MS data sets were obtained here in Lund on the new BioAccord System. It is easy to use and delivers fast and robust analyses.
In your opinion, what are the bottlenecks in analytical workflows in the biopharma industry today?
The mass spectrometer has gone from a fancy analytical instrumentation with a lot of down time to a robust workhorse for delivering solid results in applications that require high throughput. By combining automated sample preparation with both dedicated instrumentation and software for the interpretation of the data, we hope to enable faster product variant analysis and also increase the implementation and use of LC-MS in bioprocess monitoring.
What do you find most exciting with the Waters collaboration?
We get access to new instrumentation, interesting column chemistries as well as a lot of know-how in automation and LC-MS method development. This will help us establish new tools for the analysis of biotherapeutics and allow us to develop end-to-end automated workflows for sample preparation, analysis and data processing.
Where can we learn more about the outcomes of this collaboration with Waters?
I will present on day 2 (May 25th) of the Virtual event Pharma in MOTION arranged by Waters. I will be covering workflows for middle-level analysis of therapeutic mAbs where we use Waters instrumentation to develop a simple and robust assay suitable for routine analysis and amenable to automation. Data originating from this collaboration will also be shared in the coming issues of the newsletter from Genovis, the Digested News. Sign up so you don’t miss out!
Which SmartEnzyme is your favorite and why?
FabRICATOR®-HPLC. This was the first project I worked on when I started here at Genovis and it offers some very unique opportunities for the automation of sample preparation for LC-MS analysis of mAbs and other biotherapeutics.
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