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Biotechnology company based in Rockville, Maryland, US
Trophogen, Inc. is a
biotechnology company based in
Rockville, Maryland .
The company was founded in 2001 with Series A funding from Toucan Capital,
[1]
[2] focusing on the development of
human and
bovine high affinity
glycoprotein hormone and related growth factor
superagonist analogs
[3] for human
infertility and animal
superovulation , as well as targeted therapy and imaging of
thyroid ,
ovarian ,
breast ,
prostate and
testicular
cancers .
[4]
Technology
Trophogen's claims that it produces long acting superagonist effects by engineering new analogs to increase their affinity to the receptor. This is achieved by substituting certain amino acids in the receptor binding domain, increasing affinity up to 100 fold. The addition of neoglycosylation sites extends the half-life of those analogs without extensions or subunit linkers, improving treatment convenience by reducing the number of injections. Trophogen's technology represents the first successful design of super active analogs of glycoprotein hormones that shows major increases in
bioactivity and exceeds results shown for other protein ligands
[5]
Lead product candidates
Recombinant, long acting, high potency human
FSH
superagonist analog for
infertility and
elective egg banking .
Recombinant, long acting, high potency human
TSH
superagonist analog for imaging and treatment of
thyroid cancer .
Recombinant, long acting, high potency bovine
FSH
superagonist analog for
superovulation and
embryo transfer in beef and dairy cows.
Recombinant, long acting, high potency equine
CG
superagonist analog for
superovulation and
embryo transfer in pigs.
Recombinant, long acting, high potency human
VEGF
superagonist for imaging and therapy of
thyroid and multiple other cancers.
Recombinant, long acting, high potency human
LH
superagonist for infertility therapy.
Recombinant, long acting, high potency bovine
LH
superagonist analog for maintenance of pregnancy in beef and dairy cows.
Recombinant, long acting, high potency
VEGF
superagonist for imaging and therapy of thyroid and other cancers in dogs and other animals.
References
^ Breaking with academia a tough choice for scientists. The Daily Record, March 2002
^ Local biotech pulls NIH license away from giant pharma. Washington Business Journal, March 2002
^ Reinfelder, J; Maschauer, S; Foss, CA; Nimmagadda, S; Fremont, V; Wolf, V; Weintraub, BD; Pomper, MG; Szkudlinski, MW; Kuwert, T; Prante, O (2011). "Effects of recombinant human thyroid-stimulating hormone superagonists on thyroidal uptake of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose and radioiodide". Thyroid . 21 (7): 783–92.
doi :
10.1089/thy.2010.0394 .
PMID
21568725 .
^ Adventure With Ventures. The Scientist, February 2006
^
Trophogen wants to score $10M, development deals. Washington Business Journal, March 2007.
External links