Solentim and ATUM announce technology collaboration to enable rapid, high expression, stable cell line development

BOURNEMOUTH, UK - Jan 14, 2019 - Solentim, a global leader in cell line development instrumentation, and bioengineering company ATUM, today announced a technology partnering and collaboration agreement. This agreement creates the most efficient cell line development solution for biotherapeutic drug developers yet, by integrating Solentims VIPS (verified in-situ plate seeding) hardware for isolating single cells with ATUMs efficient Leap-In Transposase® expression technology.

This collaboration allows Solentim and ATUM to offer a unique integrated solution to our customers and significantly accelerate stable cell line development workflows, explains Dr Ian Taylor, Commercial Director of Solentim. This approach means that scientists no longer need to pre-screen for high producing clones, e.g. using fluorescence detection to measure secretion from single cells or colonies. Instead, using the Leap-In Transposase technology, almost every transfected cell is a high producing clone. Combining this with high seeding efficiencies from VIPS has huge practical benefits to the workflow in time, cost and efficiency.

The protein pharmaceutical market is approaching a quarter of a trillion USD per year. Establishing and isolating the most suitable cell lines producing these drugs is a major manufacturing bottleneck. We are extremely excited to combine our advanced bioengineering tools with the leading instrumentation technology of Solentim to accelerate the discovery and development process says Dr. Jeremy Minshull, CEO of ATUM.

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Notes to Editors

About VIPS
VIPS from Solentim is a unique all-in-one instrument which performs single cell seeding into 96 well plates, verifying success by z-stack imaging the nanolitre (nL) volume droplets, and then performing whole well imaging of the single cell for the assurance of clonality regulatory requirements.

About Leap-In Transposase Technology
The Leap-In Transposase® rapidly catalyzes the stable integration of genes into a target genome. Genes are integrated as multiple independent copies with structural integrity perfectly maintained. This greatly reduces the screening burden required compared with slower, more traditional "random integration" methods where the introduced DNA is randomly fragmented and often rearranged. ATUM's Leap-In technology is protected by over a dozen pending and issued patents.

About Solentim
Solentim enables its life science industry customers to develop a greater number of more effective pharmaceuticals to help patients live healthier, for longer. We do this through designing and manufacturing highly innovative instruments that facilitate the process of commercial cell line development. This phase of biopharmaceutical production is a high-value process which is intrinsically expensive and time-consuming. Our solutions significantly shorten the upstream cell line development workflow process and therefore make drug production faster and more cost effective. Our products, Cell Metric® and VIPS, represent the next generation of single cell printing and provide documented proof of monoclonality for the FDA and other regulatory bodies. All of the worlds top ten pharmaceutical companies use Solentim products. Established in 2010 and with global headquarters in Dorset, UK; the organisation employs over 40 people across the UK, Europe, Asia and the USA.

About ATUM
ATUM, formerly DNA2.0, offers an integrated pipeline of tools including gene design, optimization and synthesis, expression vectors, and platforms for protein and strain engineering and production. ATUM exploits the dependence of biological activity on well-designed sequences. ATUMs tools and solutions are fuelling the transformation of biology from a discovery science to an engineering discipline. By collaborating with our clients, ATUM accelerates breakthroughs and moves research further faster.

For further information, contact:

Corporate Contacts:
Solentim Ltd
Ian Taylor, Sales & Marketing Director
T: +44 (0)1202 051813
E: ian.taylor@solentim.com

ATUM
Claes Gustafsson, CCO
T: +1 (650) 853 8347
E: cgustafsson@atum.bio

PR Contact:
Emma Pickup / Juliette Craggs
Sciad Communications Ltd
T: +44 (0)20 7470 8801
E: solentim@sciad.com