Clemson Gets $6M Grant to Help Lower Some Drug Costs

Sarah W. Harcum of Clemson University is leading a team that has received $6 million for research that could help lower the cost of several drugs that run into the thousands of dollars per treatment and fight some of the world’s most debilitating ailments.

The team brings together researchers from three states to seek better ways of engineering Chinese hamster ovary cells, which are used to manufacture more than half of biopharmaceuticals.

Sarah W. Harcum, professor of bioengineering, works in her lab at Clemson University.

The potential impact is immense. Products from these cells represent more than $70 billion in sales each year and include drugs for Crohn’s disease, severe anemia, breast cancer and multiple sclerosis.

The focus for Harcum and her team will be on the Chinese hamster ovary “cell line.”

A cell line is developed from a single cell culture and starts with uniform genetic composition that would ideally remain unchanged. But that genetic composition drifts as the cells reproduce, and they become less effective at creating the drug they have been engineered to create.

As a result, manufacturing becomes more expensive, said Harcum, a professor of bioengineering.

“We expect by the end of the study we will have identified some genes that cause the instability,” she said. “What would be even better is if we can prove by modifying those genes we can make a genome that is more stable. With success, the Chinese hamster ovary cell line will stay more stable during the manufacturing. We hope to get that drift to be reduced; that’s the ultimate goal.”

The four-year grant was among eight awards totaling $41.7 million announced Wednesday by the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR.

The project is expected to increase patient access to expensive medicines, while helping educate the professionals headed for the advanced biomanufacturing workforce.