PerkinElmer and Vivascience develop proteomics platform
Vivascience has announced the formation of a joint partnership and
distribution agreement in biomarker screening and discovery.
The collaboration attempts to address the high failure rate of selecting drug targets in the clinical trials process due to toxicity or low efficacy. This has resulted in an increased interest in identification of biomarkers suitable for use in therapeutic planning and individualized medicine.
The hope is that combining the company's proprietary technology; the rate of discovery of novel, informative biomarkers will dramatically improve the speed and efficiency of drug discovery which is one of the primary drivers of the proteomics market.
Under the agreement, Vivascience will supply its membrane adsorber chromatography technology for capturing biomarkers to PerkinElmer who will combine the technology with its proprietary methods for elution, creating fractionation and biomarker sample preparation kits.
The kits will be integrated with PerkinElmer's automated platform for biomarker screening, which includes the MultiProbe II for automating the kits and the prOTOF 2000 MALDI O-TOF mass spectrometer for detecting the biomarkers.
MALDI O-TOF's approach to biomarker discovery combines two powerful techniques: chromatography and mass spectrometry. The ability to provide a rapid protein expression profile may provide insights into mechanisms of drug resistance and drug pharmacodynamics
Vivascience's monoclonal antibody technology, in contrast to traditional resins and beads, features a rigid format that makes it highly reproducible and robust.
Matthias Keff, CEO of Vivascience said: "The combined strength of PerkinElmer's state-of-the-art proteomic hardware and Vivascience's portfolio of membrane technology solutions will add significant value to the proteomics market."
According to Biotechnology market researchers Fuji-Keizai, the Proteomics market is projected to grow from a $565 million (€460 million) market in 2001 to over $3.3 billion in 2006. This represents an average annual rate of growth of over 40 per cent.
Demand for proteomics services is expected to be strong throughout this time period with an average annual growth rate of over 50 per cent. However, the rate of growth in this market segment is expected to slow during and after 2004 when next generation proteomics platforms are introduced. The proteomics platform market segment will remain the largest with a growth from $311 million in 2001 to approximately $1.7 billion in 2006.
