Cambridge, UK, 14 April 2020: Horizon Discovery Group plc (LSE: HZD) (“Horizon”, “the Company” or “the Group”), a global leader in the application of gene editing and gene modulation for cell line engineering, today announced special commercial licensing terms to facilitate rapid access to its cGMP-compliant CHOSOURCE™ platform for the development or production of therapeutic proteins, diagnostic assay components or vaccines relating to COVID-19.

The CHOSOURCE platform includes a gene-edited Glutamine Synthetase (“GS”) knockout Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) K1 cell line, a well-established GS expression system recognized in the industry and by regulators as suitable for high yield biomanufacturing. The platform is already offered as a royalty-free alternative for the production of complex proteins and is empowering organizations from early stage start-ups to large pharmaceutical companies to drive efficiencies throughout development and production. CHOSOURCE has been utilized in multiple successful Innovative New Drug (IND) filings.

Horizon is already a key supplier for research relating to COVID-19, providing many tools and services to academia and industry to support their efforts in addressing the pandemic. This offering further extends Horizon’s COVID-19 support portfolio: https://horizondiscovery.com/en/products/covid19-research-support

Jesús Zurdo, Global Head Bioprocessing, Horizon Discovery said: “The current coronavirus crisis is highlighting existing shortcomings in the development of much-needed therapeutics. Horizon Discovery is fully committed to help innovators in their efforts to develop new solutions to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. We are providing immediate access to our state-of-the-art bioproduction platform under very favorable terms to facilitate such efforts.”

Terry Pizzie, CEO, Horizon Discovery said: “We are committed to providing flexible, royalty-free access licensing terms and solutions that streamline development and production processes. Building upon more than a decade of experience in cell line engineering, we developed our CHOSOURCE cell line and now support a growing number of pharmaceutical companies in bioproduction. We are doing all that we can to support the fight against COVID-19 and hope that offering rapid access to our CHOSOURCE platform will help to accelerate the development and validation of new therapies to combat the pandemic.”

For further information about Horizon’s CHOSOURCE platform for COVID-19, please contact bioproduction@horizondiscovery.com