Wyeth BioPharma

Biotechnology or biopharmaceutical products are generally large biological molecules called proteins. They most often target the underlying mechanism of the disease rather than disease symptoms. Biopharmaceuticals often address unique disease targets not accessible to traditional small molecule pharmaceutical products.

Biopharmaceutical drug discovery is carried out within the Wyeth Research Discovery Research Organization. Nearly one third of our current pipeline is composed of biotechnology candidate products and vaccines. Biopharmaceuticals are a growing family of drug products either as replacement proteins, antibodies, targeted antibodies, receptor fusion proteins, or on alternate platforms/scaffolds. Based on the nature of the disease target, Wyeth scientists decide whether a biopharmaceutical or small molecule approach is best. Ultimately, the discovery process between small molecule and biopharmaceuticals is quite different; however, breakthrough technologies like high throughput screening are being employed in the search for new Wyeth biopharma products.

Wyeth has a significant development infrastructure in place in Andover, Massachusetts, and Grange Castle, Ireland, to move promising discoveries forward into clinical development. Our capabilities and capacities in cell culture enable us to optimize production for development and ultimately to scale-up for commercialization. Wyeth scientists are also investigating the best ways to make these innovative biopharma therapies convenient for physician and patient use.

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