Commercial Production in Insect Cells One Company ’ s Perspective by Manon

sequenced more than 30,000 genes, all of them potential disease targets. Identifying the function of those genes, making the proteins they encoded, characterizing those proteins, and finding applications for them is generally considered the biotechnology industry’s next challenge. Factors such as time to market, cost of goods, product characteristics, regulatory hurdles, and intellectual property can ultimately determine the success or failure of a given project. Selecting an appropriate expression system for the protein of interest will affect most of those factors. For any protein of interest, the critical parameters must be identified before the most optimal expression system can be found. Figure 1 provides some basic guidance for selecting an expression system. The baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) is known and used mostly as a research tool. Thousands of articles describing the use of the BEVS system for the production of proteins for research use have been published during the past few decades. Its reputation is one of providing quick access to biologically active proteins. But today no protein produced in insect cells has been approved for human therapeutic or vaccine use. The case study presented in this chapter provides evidence that this technology continues to have tremendous potential.