Profound Pharma A/S was a Danish company that develops 2nd generation

biopharmaceutical A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, t ...

History

Created in Denmark in 1999 by

Christian Karsten Hansen Christian Karsten Hansen (born 18 August 1966) is a Danish biotechnology entrepreneur, investor and inventor, with work in new drugs, molecular biology and biochemistry. Personal background Originally from Copenhagen (Denmark), he spent his chi ...

and Jan Møller Mikkelsen, formerly of

Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk A/S is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bagsværd, with production facilities in nine countries and affiliates or offices in five. Novo Nordisk is controlled by majority shareholder Novo Holdings A/S ...

, the company was funded by venture capital and a loan from Vækstfonden. After rapidly growing to employ 50 scientists, and filing large numbers of patent applications, the company was acquired by

Maxygen Maxygen Inc. was a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing improved versions of protein drugs using DNA shuffling and other protein modification technologies. The company was headquartered in Redwood City, CA. It dissolved in 2013. The ...

in 2000, for $60 million in stock. From its acquisition by

until 2008, the company continued as a subsidiary of

forming the cornerstone of its biopharmaceutical business, and contributing to

´s molecular breeding technology. With

NeuroSearch NeuroSearch A/S is a Danish biotechnology company specializing in pharmaceuticals for treating diseases and disorders affecting the central nervous system (CNS). History NeuroSearch was founded in Denmark in April 1989 as one of the first comp ...

Genmab Genmab A/S is a Danish biotechnology company, founded in February 1999 by Florian Schönharting, at the time managing director of BankInvest Biomedical venture fund. The company is based in Copenhagen, Denmark – internationally, it operates t ...

and

Zealand Pharma Zealand Pharma A/S is a Danish biotechnology research company, which designs and develops peptide-based medicines, mainly focusing on metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity. The company's head office is situated in Søborg near Copenhag ...

, Profound Pharma was among the early members of the

Medicon Valley Medicon Valley is a leading international life sciences, life-sciences cluster in Europe, spanning the Øresund Region of eastern Denmark and southern Sweden. It is one of Europe's strongest life science clusters, with many life science companies a ...

biotech cluster. Its initial directors were Dr. Claus Bræstrup, Prof. Thue Schwartz and Knud Aunstrup.

Projects

Profound Pharma developed improved versions of

interferon beta The type-I interferons (IFN) are cytokines which play essential roles in inflammation, immunoregulation, tumor cells recognition, and T cell, T-cell responses. In the human genome, a cluster of thirteen functional IFN genes is located at the 9p2 ...

granulocyte colony-stimulating factor Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF or GCSF), also known as colony-stimulating factor 3 (CSF 3), is a glycoprotein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce granulocytes and stem cells and release them into the bloodstream. Function ...

TNF inhibitor Tumor necrosis factor (TNF), formerly known as TNF-α, is a chemical messenger produced by the immune system that induces inflammation. TNF is produced primarily by activated macrophages, and induces inflammation by binding to its receptors o ...

factor VII Coagulation factor VII (, formerly known as proconvertin) is a protein involved in coagulation and, in humans, is encoded by gene ''F7''. It is an enzyme of the serine protease class. Once bound to tissue factor released from damaged tissues, ...

and other commercially important protein pharmaceuticals.

Technologies

Profound Pharma used a variety of

protein engineering Protein engineering is the process of developing useful or valuable proteins through the design and production of unnatural polypeptides, often by altering amino acid sequences found in nature. It is a young discipline, with much research taking pl ...

and protein modification technologies including site-directed

mutagenesis Mutagenesis () is a process by which the genetic information of an organism is changed by the production of a mutation. It may occur spontaneously in nature, or as a result of exposure to mutagens. It can also be achieved experimentally using lab ...

, rational design,

PEGylation PEGylation (or pegylation) is the process of both covalent and non-covalent attachment or amalgamation of polyethylene glycol (PEG, in pharmacy called macrogol) polymer chains to molecules and macrostructures, such as a drug, therapeutic protein ...

glycosylation Glycosylation is the reaction in which a carbohydrate (or ' glycan'), i.e. a glycosyl donor, is attached to a hydroxyl or other functional group of another molecule (a glycosyl acceptor) in order to form a glycoconjugate. In biology (but not ...

, and de-immunization. These technologies complemented the molecular breeding technology of

References

{{Reflist Defunct pharmaceutical companies of Denmark Biotechnology companies of Denmark Pharmaceutical companies established in 1999 Danish companies established in 1999