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CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, the German developer of a novel human expression system derived from amniocytes, announced today the signing of an exclusive license option agreement with Pevion Biotech, the Swiss vaccine company. The agreement enables Pevion Biotech to exclusively use CEVEC's transient CAP-T^TM cell expression technology to manufacture and commercialize a protein antigen for vaccination against a widespread human infectious disease. Following successful entry into toxicological studies and clinical phases I to III, CEVEC will receive undisclosed milestone payments and additional running royalties after market approval. Further financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

The transient CAP-T^TM protein production technology is based on CAP® cells, a human immortalized cell line for stable protein production derived from amniocytes and developed by CEVEC. These non-tumor origin cell lines exhibit high protein expression levels even for difficult to express proteins. They have been adapted to serum-free suspension culture and show post-translational modifications that are human-like, including authentic human glycosylation patterns. The platform allows efficient protein production from research, development and scale up to large scale manufacturing in high-volume bioreactors.

"The signing of this agreement is a major milestone for CEVEC since it represents our first exclusively granted license for a clinically highly relevant protein produced in our CAP® cells. We're proud that Pevion Biotech as one of the most innovative vaccine companies has chosen our CAP® technology expression platform to produce a technically demanding protein that so far remains a challenge to be expressed in standard cells like CHO or HEK 293," states Rainer Lichtenberger, CEO of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals.

The target protein is part of a vaccine that Pevion Biotech intends to develop based on its proprietary and market-validated virosome technology platform.