NUMA-SCALE · Enabling Large-Scale GMP-ready Peptide Production with a new, reliable and cost-efficient Bioprocess

Peptides, competent biomolecules, have gained increased interest as innovative therapeutics in the pharmaceutical market due to being highly selective, efficacious, relatively safe and well tolerated. Peptide-based drugs have been successfully applied in treating certain human diseases. Well-known example includes insulin, which compromises a peptide that is built to block and control the metabolism of sugar. With the increase of approved peptide-based drugs, the production of peptides will escalate. Yet, peptide manufacture companies (for peptide-based drugs), which need to be compliant with good manufacturing practices (GMP), face a several challenges, the main ones being high production costs on downstream processes (due to the use of high raw material amounts) and bad scalability. Numaferm is a German company founded in 2015 with the mission of making peptides economical for pharmaceutical markets. To tackle current challenges, we have developed two (patented) innovative technologies (NUMAtag and NUMAswitch) whose unique features are not offered by the alternatives in the market for peptide manufacture: cost-efficient production (50x reduction of manufacturing costs, under GMP); environmentally friendly process (reduced carbon foot print by >90%); scalable production (peptide scalability by ton scale with no peptide length limitation), thus enabling a high efficiency upstream and downstream process for peptide manufacture. Through the NUMA-SCALE project we aim to upscale our production and extend our commercial capabilities (by making our processes ready for tech-transfer into GMP facilities of Contract Manufacture Organizations) thus allowing us to seize more business opportunities. This project will have a massive positive impact to Numaferm – will boost our revenues (+€14.8M by 2023), employability (creation of 15 new jobs) and generate new IP, allowing us to continuously venture new markets with our technology.