Proteome Regulatory News (PRM)

19 May 2021

Prior to publication, the information contained within this announcement was deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the UK Market Abuse Regulations. With the publication of this announcement, this information is now considered to be in the public domain.  

Proteome Sciences plc

("Proteome Sciences" or the "Company")

Issuance of key TMT® Patent and Introduction of 18plex TMTpro™ Services

Proteome Sciences is pleased to announce the issuance to it of U.S. Patent No. 10,976,321 relating to methods of analysis using isobaric mass tags. This patent, which covers the TMTcalibrator™ workflow, enables enhanced fluid biomarker discovery and single-cell proteomics and forms part of the intellectual property exclusively licensed to Thermo Fisher Scientific by the Company. Commercial users interested in performing any of the methods covered by U.S. Patent No. 10,976,321 or its foreign counterparts should contact the Thermo Fisher Scientific Licensing Team.

The Company is also launching new higher-throughput services using a recently developed, extended range of TMTpro™ reagents that now provide 18 channels, increasing throughput and enabling quantification of 100 samples in only 6 experiments.

Commenting, Dr. Ian Pike, Chief Scientific Officer, said: "These are key developments for the Company as we see increasing demand for our services across the drug-development and academic sectors. U.S. 10,976,321 is a key patent covering our TMTcalibrator™ technology, which is at the heart of our precision medicine efforts. We are updating the technology access program with our exclusive licensee Thermo Fisher Scientific, offering commercial users and providers of contract research services (CROs) an efficient way to obtain licenses to the TMT® patent portfolio where required.

Combined with the extension of TMTpro™ to 18plex, this represents the most powerful proteomics platform to identify and develop biomarkers that are essential to developing personalised medicine through more efficient, large-scale blood biomarker proteomics, as well as enabling the emerging field of single-cell proteomics".

For further information:

Further Background and Notes to Editors

Tandem Mass Tags® (TMT®) were developed by Proteome Sciences to increase the throughput of proteomics experiments through isobaric mass tagging. Introduced through a partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2008, the technology has been developed from initially having six tags, to now offering the ability to multiplex up to 18 individual samples in one mass spectrometry experiment.

The subject matter of U.S. Patent No. 10,976,321 covers applications such as TMTcalibrator™ where two or more of the TMT® channels are used for a carrier or reference proteome sample. Proteome Sciences has been delivering TMTcalibrator™ projects to its customers for over 5 years, delivering outstanding breadth and depth of analysis in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker discovery. In one case, the Company was able to quantify over 8,000 plasma proteins and identify novel biomarkers for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis using this approach combined with high-abundance protein depletion. Most recently, the TMTcalibrator™ method has been adopted by several groups to perform single-cell proteomics, a technique that offers considerable potential to map key biological processes underlying diseases, such as cancer and neurodegeneration, as well as better explaining why drugs work well in some individuals but experience resistance or relapse in others.

Originally filed in 2008, the issued patent has been granted 392 days of term extension and will expire in February, 2029. Foreign counterparts have issued in Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia where the patent is due to expire in March, 2028.

About Proteome Sciences plc. (www.proteomics.com)

Proteome Sciences plc is a specialist provider of contract proteomics services to enable drug discovery, development and biomarker identification, and employs proprietary workflows for the optimum analysis of tissues, cells and body fluids. SysQuant® and TMT®MS2 are unbiased methods for identifying and contextualising new targets and defining mechanisms of biological activity, while analysis using Super-Depletion and TMTcalibrator™ provides access to over 8,500 circulating plasma proteins for the discovery of disease-related biomarkers. Targeted assay development using mass spectrometry delivers high sensitivity, interference-free biomarker analyses in situations where standard ELISA assays are not available.

The Company has its headquarters in London, UK, with laboratory facilities in Frankfurt, Germany.