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BioFocus and Activiomics today announced a strategic alliance which will allow BioFocus to offer Activiomics’ proteomics services to its customers, to improve identification of novel targets for drug discovery and biomarkers for diagnostics.
Activiomics’ proprietary technology, TIQUAS (Targeted In-depth QUAntification of cell Signaling), provides valuable insights into which proteins or pathways have been activated following a cell signaling event, information that is generally not accessible using conventional expression analysis. This has application in a range of therapeutic areas including oncology, inflammation and metabolic disease.
TIQUAS makes use of sophisticated mass spectroscopy-based techniques to detect and quantify thousands of phosphorylation sites from a cell/tissue extract. This provides clues as to which proteins or pathways are activated, since change in phosphorylation status is indicative of a change in protein activity. The output from this platform is analyzed using a range of proprietary bioinformatics tools.
Chris Newton, SVP Galapagos Services and MD BioFocus, commented: “Proteomics analysis, in particular phosphoproteomics, is becoming ever more important in drug discovery programs. By partnering with Activiomics, BioFocus extends its offering of high-quality scientific expertise into this newly emerging area.”
Mark Warne, Chief Executive Officer of Activiomics, added: “We are delighted to begin this strategic partnership with BioFocus. BioFocus is renowned for its fast, accurate and professional contract research service, making it an obvious choice of partner for Activiomics. We are looking forward to making our popular platform even more widely available through exposure to BioFocus’ large and growing client base.”
About BioFocus
BioFocus provides integrated drug discovery that delivers pre-clinical drug candidates in all therapeutic areas with strong capability in neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory diseases and with a growing track record of delivering candidates against rare and neglected diseases. BioFocus has advanced and comprehensive drug discovery capabilities that are applied to client projects to deliver targets, hits, leads and candidate pre-clinical drugs. The company employs over 200 exceptionally qualified and industry experienced scientists at its three research centers in the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1997, BioFocus has striven to produce high quality data for its clients and this quality is assured by ISO9001 qualification validated by regular, independent inspection of all BioFocus research centers.
About Activiomics – www.activiomics.com
Headquartered in London, UK, Activiomics Ltd. is a privately owned spin-out company from the Barts Cancer Institute (BCI), ranked one of the top five cancer research centres in the UK and a Queen Mary University of London campus. The company was founded in 2009 through investment from a number of sources including IP Group.
Activiomics has developed a groundbreaking patented technology that will enable a transformation in the way in which biomarkers are identified, diagnostics are developed and drug candidates are identified and profiled.
Activiomics’ technology centres around novel mass spectrometry based approaches for the global quantitative analysis of phosphorylation sites. Phosphorylation is a critical mediator in all cellular processes and hence sites of phosphorylation represent an important class of novel biomarkers. Activiomics’ TIQUAS (Targeted In-depth QUAntification of cell Signaling) technology enables the quantification of thousands of phosphorylation events from a given cell or tissue sample and the subsequent markers of response that are identified will enable the development of future diagnostics.
Activiomics is using exclusively accessed primary breast and kidney cancer samples to generate proof of concept data and high value data packages for novel predictive and prognostic markers of disease. Additionally, Activiomics commercializes its technology by partnering directly with large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in bespoke programmes of work. Recent partners include Genentech, UCB and GlaxoSmithKline.
