Science in the Triangle

Novozymes says it has figured out how to make cellulosic ethanol possible that costs about the same as gasoline, GlaxoSmithKline’s restless leg drug raises safety concerns and the Hamner Institutes team up with a leading cancer cluster in Oslo, Norway.

Enzymes get cheaper and better

After 10 years of work, Novozymes announced it can make enzymes that brings down the production costs of cellulosic ethanol to below $2 per gallon. The enzymes, called Cellic CTech2, have shown to work in corn cobs and stalks, wheat straw and woodchips.

All commercially available fuel ethanol is made by turning the starches in corn kernels into sugar. The goal has long been to switch from corn, which is also a food source, to biomass waste such as corn stalks and woodchips. But the cost of the enzymes that break down the cellulose in biomass to sugar has always been too high for cellulosic ethanol to compete with gasoline and corn ethanol at the pump.

Novozymes is a Danish enzyme producer with a large production plant at its U.S. headquarters in Franklinton, north of Research Triangle Park. Part of the research to bring down the cost for Cellic CTech2 was done in Franklinton, but marketing director Poul Anderson told Transport & Logistic News that the enzymes will be produced at Novozymes’ proposed Nebraska facility.

Horizant raises safety concerns

An experimental restless leg treatment that GlaxoSmithKline, a British drugmaker that has its U.S. headquarters in RTP, developed with a California partner fell short of regulatory approval because of safety concerns.

The Food and Drug Administration raised questions about pancreatic tumor cells in rats that were found in preclinical tests of the drug, which goes by the name Horizant and is a longer-lasting version of an epilepsy drug that is already on the market. The epilepsy drug was approved despite having raised similar safety questions, because the seriousness of the condition it treated justified the risk.

A Jeffries analyst estimated that Horizant could have generated up to $500 million in annual sales.

Hamner establishes ties to Norway

The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, an RTP research institute, set up a second partnership to help biotech companies overseas speed up their drug development.

A few months ago, the Hamner established ties to China, now a link to Oslo, Norway, and one of the leading European clusters to develop cancer treatments followed.

As part of the emerging international network, the Hamner will provide the Norwegians access to three comprehensive cancer centers located in North Carolina, the Shanghai Center for Disease Control, and Tianjin Institute for Hematology. Training and education will include post-doctoral training in innovative drug safety technologies, business training for entering the U.S. market, and regulatory training for compliance with FDA standards. Oslo will contribute its research and Phase I resources and potential access to its own growing European network of collaborators.