The growing pipeline of biopharmaceutical products requires companies to identify the best performing cell lines for large scale production as early as possible to enable accelerated development of highly economic and robust production processes. In a procedure called clone selection, high-performing cell lines are identified and selected for further process optimization. Despite increased standardization efforts in this area, the challenge remains to rapidly identify those clones which robustly express large amounts of high-quality biologics. Janssen and Insilico collaborate to develop an automated workflow for predictive clone selection by combining the outstanding expertise of both companies in cell line development and predictive modelling of cell cultures.

Insilico's Digital Twins are digital models of cells in their bioprocess which allow for virtual experimentation to replace time-consuming wet lab experiments. Clone-specific Digital Twins enable the selection of the best producer cells in high-throughput scale-down systems by predicting an individual clone's performance and robustness in large scale and its improvement potential under optimized media and feeding conditions.

"The use of Insilico’s predictive Digital Twins for clone selection is a great example of combining state-of-the-art modelling and experimental expertise. Looking back at several years of successful collaboration, we see a great potential to further shorten our development timelines and thus bring high-quality biopharmaceutical products to patients in the shortest possible time." says Kevin D. Smith, PhD, Head of Cell Line Development of Janssen Research & Development, LLC.

"Automated workflows for clone selection not only result in more robust and efficient processes, but allow Janssen to select the best production clone very early. This saves a significant amount of wet lab experiments and thus shortens development timelines. We are very excited to collaboratively develop a faster and more economic clone selection workflow for Janssen." says Klaus Mauch, CEO of Insilico Biotechnology AG.

The collaboration will run for three years and will be based at Insilico's site in Stuttgart, Germany and at Janssen's Spring House location in the USA.

About Insilico
Insilico Biotechnology AG develops and delivers predictive Digital Twins to advance biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing. Insilico Digital Twins of cell culture processes lead to superior productivity, product quality, and process robustness. Groundbreaking predictive power is achieved by exploiting process data using artificial intelligence and biochemical networks. As a result, Insilico's unique approach substantially reduces experimental effort, costs of goods, and time to market. Leading biopharmaceutical companies worldwide use Insilico Digital Twins for cell line development, media design and process control. Founded in 2001, Insilico Biotechnology is a privately held company based in Stuttgart, Germany.