Ventria Bioscience
 | |
| Private company | |
| Industry | Biotechnology |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Fort Collins, CO |
Area served | United States |
| Products | Bioscience Products |
| Website | www.ventria.com |
Ventria Bioscience is a biotech company with a focus on human nutrition and human therapeutics. The company was established in 1993 in Colorado.[1] The company's core technology is a genetically modified crop-based protein production system (also called a "pharming" system) called ExpressTec.
Regulatory Advantages
ExpressTec uses self-pollinating crops such as rice and barley to minimize the risk of gene flow normally associated with transgenic plants. Plant-produced proteins also offer advantages for cell culture and bioprocessing use because they replace animal derived components, which have become unpopular due to concerns about prion contamination.
Facilities
Ventria's corporate headquarters is in Fort Collins, Colorado, with additional facilities in Kansas. On September 29, 2006, Kansas officials announced an agreement to bring Ventria’s new bioprocessing facility to Junction City, Kansas. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius was very supportive of the agreement and was quoted as stating "I welcome Ventria Bioscience to Kansas and look forward to their contributions to the health of children worldwide."[2] The effort to attract Ventria to Kansas involved a number of players, including Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky, The Kansas Department of Commerce, Junction City and Geary County, Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC), KansasBIO, Kansas State University, and Kansas Farm Bureau.
Markets and products
As of 2012 Ventria is developing six therapeutic products:
- Human Health
- VEN100 Recombinant human lactoferrin for antibiotic-associated diarrhea[3]
- VEN101 for Chemotherapy-Induced Diarrhea[4]
- VEN120 for Inflammatory Bowel Disease[5]
- VEN130 for Osteoporosis[6]
- VEN140 for Hepatic disease[7]
- VEN200 Optibumin Recombinant human albumin as a replacement for therapeutic human serum albumin [8]
The company offers contract biomanufacturing services using its ExpressTec platform, and, through its subsidiary InVitria, sells a line of its proteins that it manufactures for the life sciences research market.[9]
The company is conducting research in the field of zoonotic disease, specifically in lyme disease and rabies, with a goal of developing vaccines and offers some its recombinant proteins to life sciences researchers under a program called BioShare.[10]
In April 2012 Ventria publicized[11] results of a Phase 2 clinical study of VEN100 to reduce incidence of antibiotic associated diarrhea in hospitalized patients conducted by investigators at Johns Hopkins University, which had been published in 2011.[12] Patients treated with VEN100 concurrently with antibiotic treatment were at a reduced risk of experiencing diarrhea compared to the participants in the control group and VEN100 was also found to be safe and well tolerated, with no observed adverse events in the study.
Previously, the results of another study found that an electrolyte solution incorporating Ventria’s recombinant lactoferrin and lysozyme helped children recover faster from diarrhea.[13] The results showed that the children receiving Ventria’s product recovered 30% faster, were more likely to recover from their diarrhea and were less likely to relapse into another episode.
In March, 2012, Ventria announced an exclusive collaboration with Merck KGaA (EMD Millipore) in which Ventria will use its ExpressTec system to manufacture and exclusively supply a recombinant protein to Merck/EMD Millipore.[14]
See also
References
- ↑ Bloomberg BusinessWeek - Ventria Bioscience, Inc.
- ↑ http://www.kansasbio.org/news/pdf/kansas_ventria.pdf
- ↑ Ventria VEN100 page
- ↑ Ventria VEN101 page
- ↑ Ventria VEN120 page
- ↑ Ventria VEN130 page
- ↑ Ventria VEN140 information on pipeline page
- ↑ Ventria VEN200 page
- ↑ InVitria Official Website
- ↑ http://www.ventria.com/bioshare/
- ↑ Ventria Press Release
- ↑ Laffan AM, et al. (2011) Lactoferrin for the prevention of post-antibiotic diarrhoea. J Health Popul Nutr. 2011;29(6):547-551
- ↑ Zavaleta N, et al. (2007) Efficacy of rice-based oral rehydration solution containing recombinant human lactoferrin and lysozyme in Peruvian children with acute diarrhea. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 44(2):258-64.
- ↑ Ventria Press Release