Companies are turning to transient protein production during early development to delay stable cell line generation, accelerate timelines, and reduce costs. A key factor for the success of this approach is the production of high quality, functional proteins with a high degree of similarity to stably produced proteins.

To reduce early stage development costs and lower late-stage attrition rates, many biopharmaceutical companies are using transient gene expression (TGE) rather than stable cell lines in their preclinical work. Another method for lowering costs and reducing poor candidate selection is being able to work in the cell line of choice during discovery.

Protein-based and cellular therapeutics have revolutionized the treatment of cancer and other diseases. However, the need to produce complex biologics with limited resources and shortened timelines has created a demand for technologies that can express multiple therapeutic moieties in a range of cell types and culture processes.

A variety of CHO cell transient transfection methods have been reported including systems based on engineered CHO cells, unique expression systems and specialized transfection reagents, but they each have varying levels of reproducibility, scalability, and cost effectiveness and generally produce antibody titers from 10 – 100mg/L (1-5).

Transient gene expression in CHO cells is a difficult enterprise to obtain high titers of recombinant antibody proteins. Conducting a transient transfection in the same host as our stable cell lines allows similar post translational modification of the expressed protein or antibodies, such as glycosylation patterns.