LibraGen is building on its expertise and unique resources to rapidly discover novel gene products and metabolic pathways from libraries of environmental and clinical genomic DNA also called META-DNA™ libraries. The company focuses its platform of proven proprietary technologies to the identification, validatio and production of valuable enzymes and molecules for industrial, pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetological and environmental applications. Internal proprietary research programs are run to feed the company's products pipeline by screening META-DNA libraries for new enzymes and new drugable bioactive products, which includes anti-infectives, anti-cancer and anti-virals compounds. Relying on its know-how and technological portfolio, LibraGen offers an array of services that ranges from on demand contract services, to complete R&D partnerships.

The increasing medical request for new and efficient drugs in the fields of infectious diseases and cancer therapy has strengthened the interest of identifying new chemical scaffolds and activities from natural biodiversity. For this purpose, LibraGen's proprietary and integrated technologies overcome the key hurdles of the traditional natural product discovery by giving an exclusive access to the unexplored part of human/animal/plant-associated, aquatic and soils microorganisms, which are the best proven source of active natural compounds Besides its capability to enter into specific partnerships, LibraGen offers different services adapted to partners'outsourcing needs in drug discovery development processes:

• Delivery of libraries of pre-purified active extracts qualified for anti-infective or anti-proliferative activities,
• On demand screening and validation of partners'active compounds collections in our anti-infectious and anti-tumour platforms (list of cell lines and strains available upon request),
• Research of natural active compounds for partner's specific targets through the creation of dedicated META-DN™libaries from relevant sample (environmental, clinical,...),
• Identification of original chemical scaffolds with associated production process from our META-DNA™ libraries as chemical basis for medicinal chemistry.

LibraGen has acquired a strong expertise in the field of biocatalytic production development of active compounds and valuable fine chemistry products. Our partnerships in biocatalysis combine every determinant aspects of a fully integrated project including discovery, molecular evolution and engineering, process development, as well as IP matters. Our biocatalytic experience enables to rapidly answer the following requests from our partners:

• Enzyme discovery and optimization.
Using its unique resources of cultivable and uncultivable biodiversity, LibraGen
explores META-DNA™ libraries to steadily identify new enzymatic activities upon the request of customers. When necessary, the discovered enzymes can be further optimized by traditional genetic engineering or by means of LibraGen's directed evolution proprietary technology brand named BioEvol™. This technology closely mimicks the natural processes of recombination by in vitro switching homologous scaffolds of enzymes, thus generating novel improved variants.
• Set up and optimization of biocatalytic reactions from bench to pilot scale. Starting from existing data or even from scratch we design and validate biocatalytic reactions for the production of a desired compound. A specific expertise has been developed for the conceptio of enzyme-based transformation processes, in particular regarding the composition of reaction media (organic solvent) to direct enzymatic reactions toward an unconventional desired ways.
• Biocatalytic production of chemical compounds. Using the results of the previous step or starting from the partner's results, we run biocatalytic productions to generate batches of fine chemicals or active compounds that tightly meet our customer's specifications and timelines.

LibraGen's research laboratories combine skilled expertises in cell biology, microbiology, activity screening, analytical chemistry, environmental genomic, biocatalysis, protein engineering and fermentation. The research programs are driven under the responsability of a dedicated senior scientist in close collaboration with the partner's project leader Regular meetings and reports ensure a clear and up-to-date visibility of the achievements, and an optimized orientation of the research program. The quality management policy of the company ensures a complete tracability and strict confidentiality of the results and achievements of the research projects.

LibraGen's NACI™ platform is focused on the identitcation of both anti-infectious and anti-tumour small molecules from specific META-DNA™ libraries. One of the company's research program is dedicated to the genomic isolation and genetic engineering of polyketides synthesis pathways. Polyketides are large, complex and often cyclic organic molecules produced by microorganisms, with a broad range of therapeutic applications including anti-bacterials, anti-fungals, immunosuppressants, anti-hyperlipidaemics, anti-cancer and anti-parasitics. The world-wide sales of polyketide-derived pharmaceuticals exceeds $17B, with a global market of $3.5B for erythromycin, the bestknown polyketide antibiotic.

LibraGen's pipeline includes a set of novel and qualified compounds issued from natural biodiversity:

Activities identified on the NACI™ platform are further characterized in terms of specificity and dose/response level. A preliminary purification of the most efficient extracts is run to isolate the active molecules and run a chemical structure determination by MS and NMR.

The overall combination of skilled expertises, proprietary technologies, research performances and productivity policy of LibraGen has already generated successful records in research and production partnerships in the fields of cosmetics, pharmaceutical and fine chemistry.

LibraGen's scientifics can rely on a complete international academic network of renowned laboratories and institues that provide an up-to-date fundamental knowledge and highly specialized technical resources. These partners includes:

– Technische Universität Berlin (Pr Süssmuth - Germany)
– University of Warwick (Dr Greg Challis – UK)
– Gröningen University (Dr Dick Van Elsas – Netherlands)
– INRA Jouy en Josas (Dr Joël Doré – France)
– CNRS Lyon (Dr Pascal Simonet – France)
– INSA Toulouse (Pr Pierre Monsan - France)
– Orsay University Paris-Sud (Dr Jean-Luc Pernodet - France)