Together with HU Berlin, CordenPharma will be developing building blocks for nanoparticles, so-called modified lipids. These ensure that actives safely enter the body and are released at their destination.
“The development of lipid nanoparticles (LNP) for RNA formulation is a complex process that requires specific lipids. In the past, LNP optimisation primarily relied on screening functional lipids using traditional experiments, which was costly and time-consuming. Now, ML, which is a branch of AI, will be used to find the relationship between functional lipids and efficiencies of mRNA vaccines in cell culture experiments, allowing us to develop a new generation of proprietary lipids with improved functionalities to obtain even more powerful active ingredients,” says Dr Adriano Indolese, global head of Development & Innovation at CordenPharma International.
CordenPharma and HU Berlin will synthesise the novel lipid components and analyse them physicochemically in combination with various RNA molecules. The cellular functionality of the formulations will then be tested in cell-culture experiments at LMU. This will show how targeted and well actives are released. Screening of different RNA types in combination with the modified lipids should yield as broad a database as possible.
The data obtained from the physical, chemical and biological analysis of the LNPs and the various RNA molecules will be used to train an ML algorithm for RNA formulations. The concept of ML is that as AI, an algorithm learns from examples and, upon completion of the learning phase, is able to generalise them. More specifically, the system, which will be set up at LMU, is to use the properties of the LNPs to match them exactly to different RNA molecules and, ultimately, treatment forms. After the learning phase, the algorithm should be able to allocate suitable formulations to any given RNA molecule. Once the system has undergone the training, the final phase of the three-year project is to check the system’s functionality in a specific application. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is sponsoring the joint project with some €1.4 million.
About WACKER Wacker Chemie AG is a global company with state-of-the-art specialty chemical products found in countless everyday items, ranging from cosmetic powders to solar cells. WACKER’s portfolio comprises more than 3,200 products supplied in over 100 countries. In the field of biopharmaceuticals, Wacker Biotech – a wholly owned WACKER subsidiary – is active as a full-service contract manufacturer of therapeutic proteins, live microbial products (LMPs), plasmid DNA (pDNA), messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and vaccines based on microbial systems. WACKER has a global network of 27 production sites, 26 technical competence centres and 51 sales offices. In 2022, the Group’s 15,700 employees generated global sales of €8.21 billion. Wacker Chemie AG is listed on the Deutsche Boerse Prime Standard and on the MDAX (ISIN: DE000WCH8881). For more information, visit
www.wacker.com.
About CordenPharma CordenPharma is a full-service partner in the Contract Development & Manufacturing (CDMO) of innovative APIs, Lipid Excipients, and Drug Products. Through a growing network of cGMP facilities across Europe and the US organised under six Technology Platforms – Lipids & Carbohydrates, Peptides, Oligonucleotides, Injectables, Highly Potent & Oncology, and Small Molecules – CordenPharma experts translate complex processes and projects at any stage of development into high-value products. For more information, visit:
cordenpharma.com.