Proteome Sciences to develop cancer pathway profiling assays

AIM-listed biotech group Proteome Sciences has unveiled its largest contract to date comprising a technology agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, to develop advanced methods to profile changes in cancer pathways. Proteome Sciences said that the contract - which it valued at £2.1m - would provide Thermo Fisher with access to its patents covering a three-stage mass spectrometry (MS3) fragmentation methodology to deliver significantly improved analysis and accuracy. Proteome Sciences would receive cash and Thermo Fisher would provide a no-cost lease for mass spectrometry equipment for Proteome Sciences to develop the pathway assays, the group said. The company said that it would leverage the combined power of TMT and Orbitrap technology to develop an expanded range of mass spectrometry assays for the pharmaceutical industry. Through its SysQuant workflows, it said that Proteome would profile the low-level changes in activity of key cancer signalling pathways to facilitate optimal drug selection across a range of solid tumours. In addition Proteome Sciences said that it would continue to develop advanced 20 and 30-plex Tandem Mass Tags (TMT) for Thermo Fisher for the next additions to the TMT range of tags.Dr. Ian Pike, Chief Operating Officer at Proteome Sciences, said: "We are at a critical juncture toward the development of personalised medicine which requires high-resolution maps of the protein networks regulating disease.""The combination of the highest sample multiplexing rates from TMT with the industry-leading Thermo Scientific Orbitrap mass spectrometer enables us to provide an unrivalled platform to investigate subtle but significant changes in the proteome."Ian Jardine, Chief Technology Officer, Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry, Thermo Fisher Scientific, said: "Life sciences researchers today need to perform high-quality relative quantitation of many samples quickly".He added:"MS3 TMT technology greatly improves quantitative accuracy and throughput, while Orbitrap technology dramatically increases depth and quality of data. This agreement offers customers a new paradigm in proteomics research."Proteome's share price was down 4.06% to 65p at 11:10 on Wednesday.MF