Cangene Corp. announced last week that it has been issued U.S.Patent No. 5,200,568 covering its proprietary productionsystem for making recombinant proteins. The patent coversboth method and product claims.

Cangene's protein manufacturing system, termed Cangenus,uses Streptomyces as host cells to crank out recombinantproteins. The Toronto company claims that this host organismis "especially efficient in producing clean human proteins inbiologically active form."

The patent covers several specific proteins, primarilyLeucotropin, Cangene's version of granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). Cangene has essentiallycompleted its Canadian Phase I/II trial of this white-blood-cell-stimulating drug in cancer patients. Cangene has also usedits Cangenus production system to make an interleukin-3(Allevorin), which has just completed preclinical toxicitytesting.

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