Replies to post #2020 on GTC Biotherapeutics (fka GTCB)

[dewophile]

"The only wild card, IMHO would be that the yield continues to increase to the point of a smaller difference between the two."

this won't happen..we have pretty much approached the limit of per batch yeilds in bioreactors. what you should bear in mind is that there is currently plenty of capacity for cell culture, and much of the cost is this infrastructure. that is why for biologics required in typical doses cell culture is and will remain for foreseeable future the standard. gtcb's niche therefore is products requiring either very large quantity of material (which cannot be met by existing capacity efficiently), or products which cannot be manufactured in cell culture very well (e.g. afp). and of course there is the antibody platform
good luck

[used to make chicken]

"orders of magnitude" sounds good, but is no longer the case. I believe the difference to be less than one order of magnitude at this time. I'll dig around for some numbers in my spare time.

The key in my mind will be the mABs because the huge doses required compared to something like EPO or NESP. as more of these pass through trials, bioreactor capacity should once again become an issue. Interestingly enough, as huge a market as EPO is responsible for, the world's supply is still produced in roller bottles.