Human Growth Hormone (hGH)

Though producing Growth Hormone (GH) is not part of Sierra Sciences main mission, it is the project that is most likely to quickly generate enough funding to support Sierra Sciences research to “Find a Cure for Aging”. Growth Hormone is a supplement that can benefit all animals. The technology to produce GH for humans (hGH) already exists at Sierra Sciences; just some assembly is required. GH for Dogs, Cats, and Horses involves trivial modifications to the technology. This technology has been kept a trade secret for 40 years and involves a technique invented by Dr. Andrews in 1982 to produce hGH in E. coli bacteria without a Formyl-Methionine on the N-terminus of the protein. When Genentech first discovered a way to produce hGH in E. coli in the late 1970’s to provide an affordable way to treat baby dwarfs so that they would grow tall they found that the hGH caused severe immune responses because bacteria always put a Formyl-Methionine on the N-terminus of all the proteins that they produce. hGH that is naturally produced in humans doesn’t contain the Formyl-Methionine. In the early 1980’s Genentech contracted Codon Corporation to figure out a way to produce the hGH in E. coli without the Formyl-Methionine. Codon put Dr. Andrews in charge of this project. In just a few months Dr. Andrews engineered the gene for hGH to trick E. coli into producing hGH lacking the Formyl-Methionine. Additional engineering by Dr. Andrews also caused the hGH to be directed to a particular compartment within the E. coli that provided a way to make it easier and far less expensive to purify the hGH from E. coli. At the time, producing hGH had Orphan Drug status with the FDA because the only expected use for hGH at the time was to make dwarfs grow tall and that was a very small market. It was considered more of a humanitarian project than a revenue generating project. So, Dr. Andrews’ trick was kept a trade secret instead of filing a patent on it. Nevertheless, all patents on the technology would have expired by now anyway. Genentech licensed hGH to Eli Lilly. When the body-building market started to grow into a big market for hGH an employee of Genentech stole the technology and started a company, GenSci, in China to also produce hGH. As of November 25, 2020 GenSci is now worth $4.2 Billion.

https://www.forbes.com/profile/jin-lei/?sh=7d9685364e66

Both Eli Lilly and GenSci still sell hGH today at tremendously high profit margins.

Other companies also produce hGH, but they produce it in mammalian cells to overcome the immune response issues because they don’t know how to produce a non-immunogenic version of hGH in E. coli. This makes it far more expensive to produce the final product. And then even other companies produce it in E. coli but have to take it through additional protocols after it is produced to rid it of its immunogenic properties. These other protocols make it far more expensive to produce the final product.

The engineered version of hGH that Sierra Sciences can provide has none of these issues and is therefore much easier and cheaper to produce.

The global hGH market size is expected to reach a value of USD 8.5 billion by 2027

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-human-growth-hormone-hgh-market

Assembly Research required

Estimated Time: 6 Months

Employees:

1 Molecular Biologist (Scientist) that is skilled in procaryotic expression.

1 Protein Chemist (Scientist) skilled at protein purification from E. coli.

1 QA/QC Scientist.

Lab Space: 600 sf ($130/sf)

Office Space: 150 sf ($130/sf)