BIOCRATES Life Sciences, CHENOMX announce co-marketing agreement

BIOCRATES Life Sciences AGMar 10 2010

Austrian biomarker developer BIOCRATES Life Sciences AG (www.biocrates.com) announced today that it entered a co-marketing agreement with Canadian-based CHENOMX Inc (www.chenomx.com). Both enterprises focus on a new and highly promising technology aimed at generating a metabolic profile of the human organism that can be used to monitor the effects of disease, nutrition, toxins, environment, or drugs on an organism.

“The research focus of both BIOCRATES and CHENOMX is to identify and quantify endogenous metabolites in body fluid or tissue samples and develop them into powerful biomarkers”

“The research focus of both BIOCRATES and CHENOMX is to identify and quantify endogenous metabolites in body fluid or tissue samples and develop them into powerful biomarkers,” says Elgar Schnegg, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of BIOCRATES. The proprietary, patent-protected technology platform of BIOCRATES is based on mass spectrometry; CHENOMX analyzes biological samples utilizing a patented and unique methodology based on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Mass spectrometry offers high sensitivity; NMR offers a broad metabolite coverage. “The two methods produce complementary data sets with very little overlap in results. Both tests can be run on the same samples thus offering a more comprehensive profile,” explains Neil Taylor, Chief Executive Officer of CHENOMX.

Recent technological advances have opened the door for the development of novel diagnostic markers of unprecedented specificity and sensitivity. In focusing on characterizing the body’s metabolite profile, both BIOCRATES and CHENOMX have dedicated their activities to the youngest addition to what may be referred to as the ‘omics’ quartet of systems biology, i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. The study of the body’s small-molecule metabolites—or ‘metabolomics’ in short—holds particular promise because it provides a snapshot of the physiologic state of an organism as determined by its genetic setup, regulation, protein abundance, and environmental influences. Rather than attempting to elucidate the effect a particular gene or protein may—or may not—have on the organism, metabolomics looks at the very endpoints of how diseases or drugs influence the human body.

In joining forces, both companies will from now on be able to offer complementary metabolomic analyses, service a large common customer base, and jointly promote the use of each other’s services. BIOCRATES - the only company in the field to have developed and brought to market a kit product for metabolomics - will also work closely with CHENOMX in evaluating and optimizing the performance of its kit products on its partner’s instrumentation and software. Ultimately, the collaborative research efforts between BIOCRATES and CHENOMX will enable diseases to be detected early, assess disease severity more accurately, monitor therapy more efficiently, tailor treatment to the individual needs of a patient, and encourage the development of targeted medicines.