Tag Archives: biotechnology

Biotage® ACT Plate Adapter Prevents Evaporative Cross-Talk

Biotage® (STO: BIOT), announces the launch of Biotage® ACT (Anti Cross Talk) Plate Adapter, an innovative solution for prevention of well to well cross contamination during extract evaporation.

Uppsala, Sweden — Biotage® (STO: BIOT), a leading global supplier of solutions and technology for analytical and medicinal chemistry, announces the launch of Biotage® ACT (Anti Cross Talk) Plate Adapter, an innovative solution for prevention of well to well cross contamination during extract evaporation.

Biotage® ACT Plate Adapter is an essential accessory for evaporation devices. Constructed from robust, high grade anodized aluminum, it fits on top of the 96-well collection plate containing the sample during evaporation. The plate adapter is compatible with straight needle evaporation devices such as the Biotage® SPE Dry 96 and Biotage® SPE Dry Dual systems, and does not require any changes to the existing analytical method.

The Biotage® ACT Plate Adapter is designed to fit on top of the 96-well collection plate, is reusable and easy to use. Evaporated gases are directed away from the sample wells, eddies are reduced, and the plate adapter reduces the open surface area of the top of the wells, lessening the likelihood that material can re-enter and contaminate adjacent wells.

“During evaporation a proportional amount of analytes present in an extracted sample can contaminate surrounding wells by being carried with the volatilized solvent. If the analyte concentration in one well is considerably higher than the analyte concentration in the surrounding wells it has the potential to cause a clinically significant and erroneous change to the adjacent samples. Biotage® ACT Plate Adapter is the first commercially available device to address the issue of cross talk on evaporation” says Dr. Claire Desbrow, Product Manager, Analytical Chemistry, Biotage.

The plate adapter can be incorporated into existing assays without the need for changing any other aspects of the method, and there is minimal impact of solvent drying times.

For further information, visit http://www.biotage.com or call:
In Europe: +46 18 56 57 10
In North America: (Toll Free) 1 800 446 4752
In Japan: +81 422 28 1233
Other areas, please call: +46 18 56 57 10

-Ends-

For further press information at Biotage, please contact:
James Churchill
Marketing Communications
Biotage GB Limited
Distribution Way
Dyffryn Business Park
Ystrad Mynach
Hengoed, Wales CF82 7TS
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1443 811 849
Mobile: +44(0)7875484778
Email: james.churchill@biotage.com

About Biotage
Biotage offers solutions, knowledge and experience in the areas of analytical and medicinal chemistry. Customers include the world’s top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as leading academic institutes. The company is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden, with offices in China, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and a worldwide network of distributors. Biotage has 293 employees with sales of 490 MSEK in 2014. Biotage is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic Stock Exchange. Website: http://www.biotage.com.

Biotage® Announces EVOLUTE® EXPRESS Columns – Simplified, Fast and Efficient SPE using the Load-Wash-Elute Procedure

Biotage® (STO: BIOT), announces the addition of new polymer based SPE columns to their tried and tested EVOLUTE® EXPRESS range.

Uppsala, Sweden (June 26, 2015) — Biotage® (STO: BIOT), a leading global supplier of solutions and technology for analytical and medicinal chemistry, announces the addition of new polymer based SPE columns to their tried and tested EVOLUTE® EXPRESS range.

EVOLUTE® EXPRESS is a novel family of plates, and now columns, that simplify polymer-based SPE by employing a streamlined three step protocol; Load-Wash-Elute. By using this approach and removing the conditioning and equilibration steps, necessary with traditional bio-analytical SPE procedures, processing and method development times are dramatically reduced without loss of analyte recovery or method robustness.

The EVOLUTE® EXPRESS design provides a uniform flow in the processing of aqueous samples and eliminates the need for re-runs due to clogging. This clear flow technology makes EVOLUTE® EXPRESS particularly efficient and effective when used with SPE automated systems, (such as the Biotage Extrahera™) and enabling consistent, rapid and reliable manual processing.

“Biotage has built a reputation for offering products that simplify Sample Preparation, promoting high throughput and reliability. By expanding the tried and tested EVOLUTE® EXPRESS range we address a real concern for many analysts who have to re-run samples due to well-clogging and sample variability. The minimal three step approach of Load-Wash-Elute considerably improves the way SPE is performed and offers significant time savings for all bio-analysis labs” says Dr. Claire Desbrow, Analytical Chemistry, Product Manager, Biotage.

EVOLUTE® EXPRESS columns are packed with polymer-based EVOLUTE® chemistries (ABN, CX, WCX, AX and WAX) to address most application needs in a wide range of laboratories.

For further information, visit http://www.biotage.com or call:
In Europe: +46 18 56 57 10
In North America: (Toll Free) 1 800 446 4752
In Japan: +81 422 28 1233
Other areas, please call: +46 18 56 57 10

-Ends-

For further press information at Biotage, please contact:
James Churchill
Marketing Communications
Biotage GB Limited
Distribution Way
Dyffryn Business Park
Ystrad Mynach
Hengoed, Wales CF82 7TS
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1443 811 849
Mobile: +44(0)7875484778
Email: james.churchill@biotage.com

About Biotage
Biotage offers solutions, knowledge and experience in the areas of analytical and medicinal chemistry. Customers include the world’s top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as leading academic institutes. The company is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden, with offices in China, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and a worldwide network of distributors. Biotage has 293 employees with sales of 490 MSEK in 2014. Biotage is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic Stock Exchange. Website: http://www.biotage.com.

Innovative Drug Discovery Business, Biosortia Pharmaceuticals, Lands Two Health Care Veterans

Kurt Dieck formerly SVP of Strategy and Business Execution at Cardinal Health, will lead early stage drug discovery business at Biosortia Pharmaceuticals. Dieck was named President and CEO in November 2012 and has quickly identified other key executives, including Dr. Guy Carter, former Natural Product head at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, as his Chief Science Officer. In conjunction, other collaboration partners have joined the team, including NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), NCI (National Cancer Institute) and key universities, to strategically accelerate the development of novel drug leads in the therapeutic areas of cancer, infectious diseases, inflammation and neurological disorders. Biosortia Pharmaceuticals has seen promising early results with dozens of novel compounds having already been requested, and are under evaluation with NCI and Eli Lilly.

Dieck has spent nearly 30 years in healthcare, including 18 years at Arthur Andersen as a global equity partner and then 10 years with Cardinal Health, a Fortune 20 public company, as a senior executive; there he worked with a broad spectrum of partners, including brand pharmaceutical manufacturers, throughout the supply chain. Dr. Guy Carter has over 30 years of experience working in pharmaceutical R&D, primarily in the discovery and development of microbial natural products. He previously was the leader of natural products drug discovery at Wyeth Research, as head of the Chemical Technologies Department.

“Kurt and Guy make a great team. Their complementary Pharma experiences and backgrounds create great opportunities to accelerate Biosortia’s objective to become the premier, aquatic natural products company with a primary focus in drug discovery,” says Ross Youngs, Biosortia’s Founder and Chairman. “Kurt and Guy bring a wealth of research and business experience along with deep industry relationships in building successful Pharma partnerships. Everyone involved with this young biotech is excited about the future.”

Industry observers have commented that late-stage R&D pipelines are not providing Pharma with the desired revenue growth the market is expecting. Therefore, large Pharma is evolving the way it performs R&D in order to optimize efficiency and to boost patent cliff defenses. These changes require shifting from relying solely on in-house chemistry-based R&D to acquiring and licensing external technologies and natural products based compounds in various stages of development. Biosortia’s ability to supply novel, highly active and potent compounds with drug-like characteristics will increase the productivity and success rate for Pharma as well as reduce the overall cost of the discovery process. The cost to discover, develop and launch a new drug is estimated to reach nearly $3B per drug by 2015. Biosortia’s business model is designed specifically to support Pharma’s needs.

“With nearly unlimited microorganisms (3.7 nonillion), the aquatic environment and its consortia represent an extraordinary opportunity…a new frontier, to access extremely potent and chemically diverse secondary metabolites with drug-like properties with unique mechanisms of action never researched before,” said Dieck. In describing the opportunity, Dieck goes on to say, “Biosortia is on the cutting edge of natural product discovery
and has the capabilities to deliver on its aspiration. Our powerful natural products research team, led by Dr. Guy Carter, in partnership with NOAA’s Dr. Peter Moeller, a leader in aquatic natural products research, has the experience and know-how to decipher the complex unexplored environment in a very efficient manner leveraging all the current state of the art instrumentation. The need for more efficient and effective approaches to drug discovery has never been more important. Biosortia’s innovative technologies, deep research skills and key relationships will efficiently provide thousands of unique natural products as candidates for drug discovery at a time when Pharma is in critical need for “high quality shots on goal.”

“Aquatic microbial consortia are a rich source of metabolically active organisms including microalgae, bacteria, fungi and their secondary metabolites,” states Carter. “Owing to the competitive nature of their habitat, chemical investigations of microbial consortia reveal unique structurally diversified natural products that are responsible for signaling and self-defense that have potential as therapeutics with novel mechanisms of action. Since they have been pre-optimized by nature, these compounds are typically closer to a drug candidate than a synthetic lead, thus requiring less optimization and shorter time when found as ‘hits’ in screening programs.”

The team has also focused on agreements with strategic collaboration partners as vital components to the strategy. Biosortia has recently entered into several collaboration agreements with NOAA, Analyticon and exclusive harvesting relationships, just to name a few. Several others will be advanced by the end of January. Biosortia’s cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with NOAA’s Center for Human Health Risk at Hollings Marine Laboratory provides a 5-year framework for research and development regarding the analysis and purification of novel bioactive compounds. According to NOAA’s Technology Partnerships Office, “Success will result in the commercial development of new and unique chemical compounds from the sea which have benefits to human health, either through disease prevention or new treatments for disease.”

Dr. Peter Moeller, NOAA’s Research Scientist who leads the Toxins Natural Products Program stated after analyzing fractions of Biosortia’s biomass, “Coupling NOAA’s mission of characterizing toxins affecting environmental and/or human health with Biosortia’s drug discovery focus turns one man’s toxin into another’s chemotherapeutic. The microorganisms analyzed in the Biosortia biomass identified more unique activity than I have seen in my 30 year career. The volumes achieved from a single harvest delivered an equivalent of 30 years of accumulation. This could materially change the landscape for natural products drug discovery research.”

As of December 31, 2012, Biosortia has identified more than 30 bioactive candidate compounds (hits) from a fresh water eutrophic lake consortium. Therapeutic areas of focus include treatments for cancer, infectious diseases, inflammation and neurological disorders. In addition, more than a dozen of its patent protected compounds are in initial evaluation stage within Eli Lilly’s Open Innovation Drug Discovery Program.

Dieck states, “Looking forward, it is with great optimism. We have a great team built around mutual respect, deep experience, and a desire to succeed and make a difference. We are aligning with the right partners and collaborators to execute our strategy with speed and discipline to provide Pharma with much high quality & diverse compounds vs. “me-too” drugs than they have had in the past 10 years. We are excited about what this company can accomplish, not only for its shareholders but also for the millions of people who have been diagnosed with various forms of chronic diseases who are looking for Pharma to identify better ways to help them extend their lives or live a more productive life. Biosortia can play a big role in identifying compounds that can help Pharma achieve these goals. I am looking forward to the challenge and opportunity to build an industry leading drug discovery company.”

# # #

About Biosortia Pharmaceuticals http://www.biosortia.com/: Biosortia Pharmaceuticals is a division of Algaeventure Systems (AVS). AVS is privately held company and are the inventors of the biomass harvesting technology. Biosortia has a proven and unique ability to obtain unculturable aquatic microorganism consortia from the natural environment in unprecedented quantities that allows its research team to perform direct study of vast quantities of new natural products (NPs), the foundation of most anti-infective agents such as antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections. Over 76% of cancer drugs are derived in some manner from NP.

If you’d like more information about the announcement or the company or to schedule an interview with Kurt Dieck, please call:

David Coho
Tel. 614-636-4850
Cell Phone: 614-325-9804
Email: dcoho@biosortia.com

 

Innova Biosciences is Proud to Announce Award of ISO 9001:2008 Certification

Innova Biosciences has had its work processes accredited to internationally recognised quality management system (QMS) standards.

Cambridge, UK, January 16, 2013 – Innova Biosciences the original manufacturer and provider of high quality bioconjugation services, used primarily in research, diagnostics and the biotech industry, announced today that it has recently achieved ISO 9001:2008 certification.

Innova Biosciences has had its work processes accredited to internationally recognised quality management system (QMS) standards. In working towards this, every operational process within Innova Biosciences was analysed and challenged resulting in a more efficient and agile organisation.

Innova Biosciences Executive Director, Andy Lane stated ‘We are extremely proud to obtain ISO 9001:2008 certification, which is an important milestone in the development of the company. It is a significant achievement, but more importantly, demonstrates the commitment to a level of excellence upon which our customers in all sectors can depend. Our attention to quality and continuous improvement of our QMS is reflected in Innova obtaining this accolade.’

About Innova Biosciences Limited;
Innova Biosciences is a growing, dynamic business based in Cambridge, UK. At the core of Innova’s business are Lightning-Link® and InnovaCoat® technologies that simplify the production of antibody-based reagents. The expanding portfolio of products is sold to research laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies and diagnostic companies worldwide. The company is ISO 9001:2008 certified.

For more information, please see www.innovabiosciences.com

Contact:
Mathew Taylor
Director
Algorythm Solutions Ltd
10 Torkington St
Stamford, Lincolnshire PE9 2UY
+44 (0)773 403 2112
mtaylor@algorythmsolutions.com
http://www.algorythmsolutions.com

Oxford Expression Technologies Launch Innovative Virus Like Particle Expression Vector

Oxford Expression Technologies (OET), the award-winning specialist provider of baculovirus-based protein expression solutions, announce the launch of flashBACPRIME, the newest edition to the flashBAC range.

Oxford, UK, November 27, 2012 – Oxford Expression Technologies (OET), the award-winning specialist provider of baculovirus-based protein expression solutions, announce the launch of flashBACPRIME, the newest edition to the flashBAC range. The new vector is specifically designed to provide increased virus like particle yield and recovery, and also benefits from the traditional ease of use associated with the renowned flashBAC one step baculovirus expression system.

The new vector offers an innovative solution to one of the challenges of VLP production by providing scientists with enhanced recovery and yield. The performance improvement is achieved by inducing cell lysis at a very late stage of infection in Trichoplusia ni (T.ni) derived cell lines. The flashBACPRIME expression vector also offers flexibility for users, although designed for use in virus like particle production, it can also be used for cytoplasmic protein expression and production.

Passing comment, James Bernard, the CEO at Oxford Expression Technologies said, “We are pleased to announce the launch of flashBACPRIME, it represents a significant improvement in performance and we are delighted to offer these benefits to our customers” he continued, “Yield and recovery are an inherent concern with VLP production and our new technology provides scientists with a solution that addresses these concerns, we are also pleased to add another innovation to our highly successful flashBAC range.”

Oxford Expression Technologies invites anyone with an interest in baculovirus protein expression and virus like particle production to visit their website – http://oetltd.com/

Oxford Expression Technologies is a biotechnology company specializing in the use of baculovirus vectors, a eukaryotic expression system that can express a large variety of recombinant proteins. Oxford Expression Technologies provides recombinant protein expression products, services and consultancy to many global pharmaceutical companies. The Company’s proprietary flashBAC technology enables large amounts of a given protein to be produced in culture. Its internationally renowned expertise and products enable proteins to be produced faster, more easily and cost-effectively using automated and high-throughput methods compared with other baculovirus expression systems. This contributes to the development of new drugs and research targeted towards understanding how proteins work in health and disease.

The company was founded in 2007 as a result of collaboration between Oxford Brookes University and the Natural Environment Research Council to provide researchers with custom proteins for research purposes.

For Further information or an illustrative image:
Media contact – Mathew Taylor, Director, Algorythm Solutions Ltd, mobile: +44 (0)773 403 2112, email: mtaylor@algorythmsolutions.com, website: www.algorythmsolutions.com

Contact:
Mathew Taylor
Director
Algorythm Solutions Ltd
10 Torkington St
Stamford, Lincolnshire PE9 2UY
+44 (0)773 403 2112
mtaylor@algorythmsolutions.com
http://www.algorythmsolutions.com

Molplex and Enamine Announce a New Partnership

Newcastle, UK and Kiev, Ukraine. January 24th 2010 – Molplex and Enamine today announced a new partnership to offer the Enamine screening collection of 1.8 million stock chemicals through the Molplex online drug design and assay-ready chemical supply services. The agreement is a major step towards eliminating the high start-up costs ofdrug discovery, bringing sophisticated drug design, compound management and assay-ready chemistry to the world’s drug discovery scientists on demand. The agreement adds Molplex online drug design systems to the deep experience in organic chemistry and compound management of Enamine to solve the problem of generating viable chemical leads for novel targets.

Molplex CEO David E. Leahy said: “We are very proud to be selected by Enamine as their partner for on demand drug discovery services at a time when major restructuring of the industry is creating new opportunities and new markets for our combined expertise. This agreement marks a step change in the size and scope of our assay-ready chemical supply service and major progress towards our goal of being the world’s first choice partner for enabling the long tail of drug discovery”

Enamine Chief Marketing and Sales Officer Dr Vladimir Ivanov said “We are happy to partner with Molplex and supply our products to the highly integrated drug discovery platform they maintain. In this collaboration we deploy all our discovery resources including the world’s biggest screening collection (1.8 million compounds), largest inventory of building blocks (45,000 products), and over 300 chemists at our Kiev’s site to assure high cost efficiency and high responsiveness to any follow up chemistry emerging from projects run through Molplex discovery platform.”

About Molplex
Molplex was created by David Leahy and Vladimir Sykora to help anyone anywhere in the world invent new medicines. Molplex’s ambition is to eliminate the high set up costs of drug discovery providing the sophisticated online drug design systems integrated with assay ready chemical supply and high content screening. CEO David Leahy previously founded Cyprotex PLC, now the world’s largest ADME Tox service supplier. The Molplex team offers extensive drug discovery experience and sophisticated software systems for automated drug design. Molplex goal is to enable the long tail of drug discovery to provide the new medicines of tomorrow by eliminating the cost of entry and increasing success rate of drug discovery projects

For more information visit www.molplex.com.

About Enamine
Enamine has been established as a provider of research services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry since 1991 and is the world’s largest chemistry supplier of innovative compound libraries and building blocks to the pharmaceutical industry.

For more information on Enamine visit www.enamine.net

Contact Details:

David Leahy, CEO,
Molplex Ltd.
i6 Charlotte Square
Newcastle Upon Tyne
England, NE1 4XF
info@molplex.com
Tel: US: 1-408-905-2900
Europe : 44-191-211-196
Dr Vladimir Ivanov, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer
ENAMINE Ltd.
23 Alexandra Matrosova Street
01103 Kiev, Ukraine
v.ivanov@enamine.net
Tel: +38 044 537 32 18
Fax: +38 044 537 32 53