The service aims to offer the pharmaceutical community a complete HTS solution around a suite of enzymatic targets that clearly have high therapeutic and economic value.
The collaboration will initially focus on high value targets in key therapeutic areas such as metabolic disorders and oncology. Specific examples of current projects include acyl-coenzyme A diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT), 11ß-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11ß-HSD), desaturases, and a family of histone deacetylases (HDACs).
Under the terms of the agreement, the Blue Sky will provide pharma-grade proteins that pharmaceutical companies can screen against their entire small molecule libraries. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
BioTrove will utilise its RapidFire screening technology that has successfully screened millions of compounds.
RapidFire Lead Discovery enables drug developers to analyse samples using ultra high-throughput mass spectrometry in less than 8 seconds per sample.
This technology enables difficult targets (lipids, fatty acids, phospholipids, steroids, and prostaglandins) to be tested using a high-throughput, native detection method.
High throughput assays are rapidly developed and utilize the direct detection of native, label-free substrate and product. This allows screening of a wide variety of targets, including many that are difficult or impossible to screen with conventional approaches.
This relationship will expand our growing list of pharmaceutical business partners" said Can "Jon" özbal, director of RapidFire technologies at BioTrove.
"The combination of RapidFire HTS technology and Blue Sky Biotech's reagent provision expertise will provide our mutual customers with an immense competitive advantage in drug-discovery," said Paul Wengender, president of >Blue Sky Biotech.