Larry, I cant weigh Arqule against Aurora, though they both have their attractions... and you have to keep in mind that if the market corrected 20%, these smaller cap biotechs would probably correct 40%...
But that said, I think Aurora has developed some unique screening assays that will allow candidate compounds that perturb very specific cell functions (like Ca++ fluxes) to be identified directly by assays that no one else can duplicate. This idea of fusing a fluorescent protein to a key protein (calmodulin- see below) can be repeated for other molecules of interest. And I like the people at ABSC, and the cash on hand, and their reasonable chance to be profitable in 2 years.
Stock price is holding firm near its all time high, and will move up once interest rate worries dissipate... maybe in December, maybe earlier.
(Co. press release today)
Aurora Biosciences Corp. (NASDAQ:ABSC) Thursday announced that it has obtained an exclusive worldwide license from the Regents of the University of California for patent rights relating to novel fluorescent indicators useful for measuring signaling events at specific locations within living cells.
The company believes that this fluorescent reporter system can be a valuable tool for drug discovery research, including high-throughput screening using human cell-based assays.
The cameleon indicators recently reported in Nature (vol. 388, pages 882-887) were developed by Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki in the laboratory of Dr. Roger Y. Tsien, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Professor of Pharmacology and of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of California, San Diego. These indicators typically consist of fusion of pairs of differently colored, brightened mutants of green fluorescent protein (''GFP''), together with calmodulin and a calmodulin binding peptide.
Such chimeric proteins provide versatile reporters of free calcium concentration, an important regulator of cell function and gene expression. Changes in calcium concentration are reported by conformational changes in the indicator proteins, which change the spatial relationship of the GFPs and, thus, the extent of fluorescence energy transfer between them.
''This approach to measuring intracellular signaling has the advantage of using a genetically coded indicator that can be targeted to specific sites such as the nucleus and endoplasmic reticulum,'' stated Dr. Tsien, who is also a consultant to Aurora. ''We call our indicators 'cameleons' because they are based on calmodulin, commonly abbreviated CaM, because their calcium-induced change in shape is reminiscent of a chameleon's tongue retracting and extending, and because they change color. We are pleased with this demonstration of how GFP mutants can report changes in protein structure and
interactions from within single living cells.''
''Licensing this cameleon technology is another piece of Aurora's strategy of acquiring and developing a wide range of proprietary fluorescent methodology to enhance the portfolio of drug discovery technologies we can provide for our collaborators,'' Dr. J. Gordon Foulkes, Aurora's chief technical officer, commented.
Aurora designs and develops proprietary drug discovery systems, services and technologies to accelerate and enhance the discovery of new medicines. Aurora is developing an integrated technology platform composed of a portfolio of proprietary fluorescent assay technologies and an ultra-high throughput screening system designed to allow assay miniaturization and to overcome many of the limitations associated with the traditional drug discovery process.
The company believes that this platform will enable Aurora and its collaborators, which currently include Bristol-Myers
Squibb, Eli Lilly and Co. and Allelix Biopharmaceuticals Inc., to take advantage of the opportunities created by recent
advances in genomics and combinatorial chemistry that have generated many new therapeutic targets and an abundance of
new, small molecule compounds. |
