Scaling up for Pompe's

Genzyme General says its acquisition of Novazyme Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s protein engineering technology and preclinical alpha-glucosidase product for Pompe's disease has not replaced GENZ's commitment to develop its Pompase recombinant human alpha-glucosidase, which is partnered with Pharming Group N.V. But if Novazyme's compound does what it is supposed to do, it is hard to see why GENZ wouldn't make the switch.

GENZ (Cambridge, Mass.) last week acquired Novazyme (Princeton, N.J.), which has been developing glycosylation and phosphorylation technologies to target replacement therapy enzymes in lysosomal storage diseases. While the enzymes themselves are not difficult to produce, the technologies are required to achieve the proper post-translational modification that allows normal targeting and compartmentalization of the enzymes into lysosomes...