Expanded Collaboration with TDI Could Mean Increased Revenue
Grant Zeng, CFA
On April 23, 2012, Pressure BioSciences, Inc. (OTC Markets:PBIO) and Target Discovery, Inc. (TDI) announced the signing of expanded strategic technology license and supply agreements.
Under these agreements, TDI now has the right to use PBIO’s Pressure Cycling Technology (PCT) Platform for their planned entry into the clinical diagnostics testing market. The planned commercial diagnostic services will initially target critical, unmet needs in treatment selection guidance for ovarian cancer. Until now, PBIO’s PCT Platform has been available on a “research-use-only” basis.
This expanded agreement is based on the previous collaboration established in 2010. Under the 2010 agreement, TDI was given the right to combine PBIO’s PCT Platform with TDI’s proprietary reagents to enable the extraction of membrane protein biomarkers from human tissue. Such biomarkers include specific modified proteins (isoforms) that have heretofore been very difficult to extract from tissue in a form suitable for diagnostic testing. The ability to rapidly extract and recover diagnostically and commercially useable protein isoforms from cell membranes is unique to PCT and the TDI reagents, and that this capability positions the companies with game-changing abilities to exploit this critical class of membrane proteins as diagnostic biomarkers.
The implications:
The extraction of membrane proteins from tissue samples typically requires the use of aggressive physical and chemical methods that yield useless protein fragments, often in solutions that are completely incompatible for laboratory testing. Consequently, although membrane proteins and their isoforms play vital roles in human health and disease, they have never been conveniently available for use as disease biomarkers.
TDI’s studies have found that the combination of PBIO’s powerful PCT platform with TDI’s proprietary reagents is a powerful tool for extraction and recovery of membrane proteins. TDI’s initial target is ovarian cancer because PCT is the only extraction method they have found that can recover biomarker for use in diagnostic testing.
The market for diagnosis of ovarian cancer is huge. Over 22,000 women are diagnosed annually in the USA with ovarian cancer, and over two-thirds of these new patients could be helped dramatically by the introduction of reliable treatment selection guidance diagnostic information.
The expanded agreement with TDI could mean increased use of PBIO’s PCT instruments and consumables, which will ultimately translate into increased revenue for PBIO.
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