Zyomyx and Specialty Laboratories Collaborate to Discover Novel Patterns Of Disease Markers
HAYWARD, Calif., Feb. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Zyomyx, Inc. announced today an agreement with Specialty Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: SP - news; Specialty), granting Specialty early access to Zyomyx' Protein Profiling Biochip(TM) platform. The collaboration forms an integral part of Zyomyx' product development and commercialization program.
Under the agreement, Zyomyx, a leader in protein chip technology, will collaborate with Specialty, the largest single source of esoteric clinical testing in the United States, on a diagnostic marker discovery program. By combining the capabilities of Zyomyx chips to measure dozens of analytes in a drop of fluid with Specialty's large archive of biological samples and diagnostic results, the companies seek to discover new patterns of disease markers with greater clinical utility than traditional single-analyte tests.
As part of the agreement, Zyomyx and Specialty will also collaborate on the design of assay standards and controls, and Specialty will evaluate the suitability of the platform for its use in clinical laboratory testing.
Specialty obtains exclusive rights to provide in-house testing services based on any disease marker profiles resulting from the development collaboration, and pays royalties to Zyomyx for these testing services. Zyomyx retains the rights to other fields of use, including the development, manufacture and sale of any diagnostic test kits and therapeutic applications, and Specialty will receive royalty payments in connection with the sale or manufacture of any diagnostic products derived from this collaboration.
``Since we're customer-driven, Specialty brings us valuable expertise on assay standardization and critical feedback on platform performance,'' said Lawrence Cohen, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Zyomyx. ``This is an important step in our commercialization of high throughput, multiplexed, protein analysis solutions that will enable our customers to discover and develop new products more rapidly and efficiently.''
Specialty works extensively with medical discovery companies to co-discover new tests, transforming research into accessible clinical tools for creating customized medical care via laboratory medicine. ``Specialty is very pleased to team up with Zyomyx on the identification of novel patterns of disease markers and the development of multi-analyte testing technology, two areas which we consider to be critical to the advancement of clinical laboratory medicine,'' said James B. Peter, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Specialty. ``Specialty is excited to have early access to the outstanding biochip platform from Zyomyx, and we look forward to validating applications of the Zyomyx technology which improve the diagnosis and management of disease.''
Current understanding of the genome and the fact that drugs normally target proteins that genes encode, not the genes themselves, has spawned a new science called ``proteomics'' -- the large-scale study of all proteins encoded by an organism's genome. Pharmaceutical, diagnostics and biotechnology companies are racing to identify proteins and determine how they affect health and disease. Their aim is to identify and validate new therapeutic agents and diagnostic biomarkers -- a Herculean task, since researchers believe the human genome may provide cells with instructions to make as many as 300,000 different proteins. Existing methods for identifying, measuring and analyzing proteins are inadequate for industrial-scale research, creating a major bottleneck in drug discovery. The Protein Profiling Biochip(TM) technology Zyomyx brings to proteomics could break open this bottleneck. For more information about Zyomyx, visit www.zyomyx.com ... |
