Sorrento Therapeutics, a development-stage biopharmaceutical company, has acquired worldwide rights that will allow for the application of its antibody library technology for the production of recombinant Intravenous immunoglobulins (rIVIG).

"With the acquisition of the proprietary rights to the rIVIG technology, we now have access to a multi-billion dollar market opportunity applying our G-MAB antibody libraries to address unmet medical needs," said Henry Ji, Ph.D., president and CEO and Sorrento.

Currently, IVIG preparations are derived from human donor blood products pooled from over 1,000 healthy individuals. However, increasing demand for IVIG products already exceeds available supply worldwide, limiting broader clinical applications. The use of Sorrento’s proprietary G-MAB library technology for the production of rIVIG may circumvent many disadvantages and obstacles currently encumbering IVIG preparations, such as potential supply constraint, costly production due to fractionation, purification and quality control challenges. Potential advantages of rIVIG include reduced batch-to-batch inconsistencies, minimal contamination risk, increased potency and no need for continued human blood donor supply.

Global sales of IVIG products exceeded $5 billion in 2012 and are projected to grow for the foreseeable future.