The Protein Man's Blog | A Discussion of Protein Research

Why outsource manufacturing?

It seems strange that companies will invest time, money, and effort into developing products to then outsource them to a third-party manufacturer, so why is there growth in companies like G-Biosciences, who offer OEM and custom manufacturing in B2B relationships?

cGMP, or current Good Manufacturing Practices, are regulations enforced by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure that systems are in place that assure proper design, monitoring, and control of manufacturing processes and facilities.

With the advancement of biochemical tools, studies on membrane proteins have grown substantially. Since membrane proteins are difficult to extract and purify, it requires optimization and an orchestrated execution. As described in our basics of membrane protein isolation blog, surface active agents are crucial for the manipulation of membrane proteins. The amphiphillic properties of these components promote the interaction of the membrane proteins, which are wrapped around by hydrophobic lipid bilayer in their native state, to become water soluble. Nonetheless, the solubility cannot be extrapolated into stability and restoration of the native functional structure; therefore, it is not necessary that a detergent (surfactant or a surface-active agent) can yield a suitable stable membrane protein fraction despite good extraction. Also, a detergent that has shown good results previously with a particular membrane protein might not work well with other membrane proteins. In the absence of gold standards or thumb rules for membrane protein extraction, it becomes imperative to understand the physiochemical characteristics of different detergents before extracting the proteins for example, the charge and degree of hydrophobicity of a specific detergent can allow a prediction of its behavior in a solution and interaction with the protein of choice.

In 1994, the vision of one man became a reality as Geno Technology became an incorporated company and began offering its first invention, the GeneCAPSULE.  The inventor and current CEO of the company is Dr. Aftab Alam, who in the infancy of the company wore every hat imaginable, including inventor, designer, manufacturer, marketer, sales rep and customer service.