The ‘SECRETERS’ partnership aims to bring about a step change in the production of recombinant proteins, particularly Biotherapeutics and Industrial Enzymes. Both are critical products for the EU biotechnology sector, with combined markets in excess of $140 billion p.a.; the former are essential for the treatment of major diseases whereas the latter permeate every aspect of our daily life. Many proteins in these categories pose severe problems in production, especially disulphide-bonded proteins and new format 'difficult-to-express' proteins. SECRETERS will train a team of 15 ESRs to develop a new generation of super-producing microbial production hosts, including Escherichia coli, Bacillus species and the yeast Pichia pastoris. The project capitalises on a series of recent innovations and involves close collaboration between 5 academic Beneficiaries, who provide world-leading expertise in redox chemistry, synthetic biology and protein expression, and 5 non-academic Beneficiaries, who include some of the world's premier biotherapeutic and industrial enzyme companies. It will enable the biotherapeutics industry to produce challenging medicines at lower costs, resulting in new drugs and wider patient access, and allow the enzymes industry to deliver a range of powerful new products. SECRETERS will equip ESRs with the interdisciplinary and intersectoral skills required to thrive in these industries, with quality assurance systems embedded throughout the programme and a commitment to a wide-ranging dissemination/outreach programme. Based on a responsible innovation approach, with clear foci on research and entrepreneurial training, SECRETERS will deliver a team of superbly-trained scientists, poised to engage in some of Europe's most important biotechnology sectors.

RealHOPE will create an understanding of the real-life handling of protein drugs in hospital pharmacy, clinics and in the hands of patients by applying smart tag technologies. Different parameters will be logged and combined with protein characterisation at different stages, as well as with information from EFPIA partners on their drugs in use. Statistical evaluation of the data will be used to identify patterns in handling that are linked to protein destabilisation occurrence and type of protein degradation. Focus interviews with personnel in hospital pharmacies, clinics and with patients/care givers will be used to understand current handling practice and what the desired handling instructions and limitations are. These insights will be used to design in-use mimicking stability protocols for the protein drugs in the project. Ultra-scaled-down devices for stability assessment will be designed to be used in early phase for efficient development cost effective and safe future protein therapies. Protocols and devices will be validated towards the collected handling data base. Interventions in hospital pharmacies using e.g. compounding robots will be investigated. Techniques to assess e.g. aggregate formation in the final drug preparation situation will be evaluated together with SMEs producing analytical tools and hospital pharmacists. The collected data and interviews will form the base of development of teaching materials directed towards different target groups: hospital pharmacists, nurses and patients/care givers. App developers will be active in this part to design attractive and efficient apps for teaching and collecting therapy performance data.