Glycorex AB is in business to manufacture research quantities and large scale quantities of bioactive carbohydrates, neoglycoconjugates, reagents and affinity materials for research and commercial applications within the Glycobiology field.

Glycorex AB is located in a recently built, highly modern lab facility in the IDEON Science Park in Lund, Sweden. The company is collaborating with leading scientists, hospitals and biotechnology companies on a strictly confidential basis in the development of carbohydrate based therapeutics and diagnostic reagents.

Glycorex employs a unique, proprietary enzymatic production technology where enzymes and substrates are inexpensive and available in bulk quantities avoiding or minimizing prior investment in cloning of enzymes or expensive synthesis of starting materials. Both this breakthrough technology and the extensive knowledge in carbohydrate synthesis in general facilitates scale-up synthesis of a broad range of bioactive structures, derivatives and analogs.

Glycorex AB is now starting a fine chemical division selling compounds of interest for the Glycobiology field. The Glycobiology field is rapidly expanding into different research and product applications.

Our intention is to facilitate this expansion by providing high quality carbohydrate compounds in both small scale and large scale quantities.

Carbohydrates are of current interest, provided they can be efficiently produced, for several areas of research and for different applications of which a few examples are given below:

Food additives, e.g. in human breast feeding supplements. Human milk contains a number of carbohydrate structures which have been identified as inhibitors of bacterial and toxin adhesion to the respiratory and gastro-intestinal tract. These compounds are probably important for the protection of new-borns from infections. Apart from the application in humans, specific carbohydrate structures have been identified which probably are important for binding of bacteria which cause e.g. common diarrhea in cattle. Glycorex have developed methods suitable for production of several such structures.

Cancer: Carbohydrates are expressed in a more or less specific manner on tumour cells and are thought to be important for the spread of malignant tumours. Vaccines and clinical reagents are developed exploiting the carbohydrates involved. Glycorex have developed efficient enzymatic synthesis of a range of antigens associated with different forms of cancer.

Infectious diseases: Several pathogens and toxins are known to bind to specific carbohydrate structures initiating infections in the respiratory, gastro-intestinal and urinary tract (cf. food additives). Compounds for vaccination, for inhibition of the pathogen/toxin binding reaction, or for rapid clinical analysis of pathogens and toxins are developed.

Inflammation: Specific structures associated with acute inflammatory conditions have been identified. Glycorex have developed procedures suitable for large scale preparation of key components identified as being important in the initial attachment of white blood cells to endothelial surfaces (interactions between carbohydrates and receptor proteins, so called selectins).