Grant: Engage Grants Program

iProgen Inc is an early stage biotechnology company (located in Richmond BC) engaged in the development of protein drugs for the treatment of human diseases. Protein therapeutics represent the fastest growing segment of the biopharmaceutical market, which is expected to reach a global value of $77 billion by 2011. Today, almost all of the protein therapeutics sold are extracellular proteins that function from outside the cell. However, this extracellular class represents merely 14% of the potential proteins available for therapeutics development. Pharmaceutical companies have attempted to utilize the remaining 86% of intracellular proteins as therapeutics but have failed due to an inability to effectively deliver these proteins to the inside of the cell. iProgen's technology addresses this barrier through their design and development of novel protein delivery tags, called PTMs, which enable proteins to enter a particular cell type, such as melanoma cancer cells, where they can correct a defect associated with the disease. Although iProgen has made significant progress in developing their PTM-tagged proteins, producing enough protein (material) for testing purposes has become a major bottleneck in their process. Researchers at BCIT have extensive expertise in therapeutic protein production and propose to develop and implement an innovative process that will rapidly generate large quantities of iProgen's PTM-proteins. This collaboration will enable iProgen to complete the crucial testing phase of their PTM technology, while affording BCIT researchers the opportunity to expand their knowledge and technology base to the development of novel protein therapeutics. This collaboration will also offer advanced training of students (or recent graduates) from BCIT's Biotechnology program, as well as iProgen researchers and, thereby, contribute to BC's knowledge-based economy.