Brussels, October 21, 2010 - PharmaDiagnostics NV, a company developing and marketing a broadly-enabling, label-free screening technology that uniquely does not require specialized equipment, announces today that it has again won first prize for the most innovative technology at a highly-focussed gathering of industry and academic drug discovery experts.
PharmaDiagnostics won the ELRIG Technology Prize at Drug Discovery 2010 Coventry, in September 2010 for the SoPRano technology platform. This is the second time in a row SoPRano has received industry acclaim at an ELRIG event. The company also won first prize at ELRIG’s Liquid Handling & Label Free Technologies show held in the UK earlier this year. The ELRIG Technology Prize is awarded at each ELRIG show for the best technology on show. It is voted for by the delegates, in a free-vote made via their feedback forms.
ELRIG (European Laboratory Robotics Interest Group) is a not for profit organization whose primary purpose is to provide a communication forum for users and vendors within the scientific research, development or production community (industrial and academic) with the aim of increasing their awareness of automation techniques and products used for scientific research, development or production.
Label-free screening is an area of great interest and potential growth in pharmaceutical research. To date, the expanding SPR segment of this market has been dominated by providers of expensive specialist instrumentation that is unable, due to technical constraints, to provide the through-put required for routine adoption of label-free screening. PharmaDiagnostics’ SoPRano label-free platform is the first SPR-based system to utilize standard plate-readers, and simple assay protocols. This makes for increased accessibility for researchers, lowers barrier to adoption and also offers excellent scalability, thus lowering costs, as it is not necessary to increase instrument expenditure to increase throughput.
“Winning this prize for the second time in a row shows that SoPRano’s appeal to knowledgeable industry and academic experts is real and ongoing,” said Dr David Ricketts, CEO at PharmaDiagnostics. “SoPRano was chosen from a large range of technologies/vendors, including label-free instrument providers, many of whom have well established technologies. Our two successive wins demonstrate the high level of market interest and market demand for a label-free platform that requires no expensive instrumentation, and offers high throughput – truly the next generation in label-free screening.”
“The ELRIG Technology Prize has become a much coveted prize at ELRIG organized conferences, as the vote is entirely composed by delegates who are from a broad span of the industry including senior representatives,” said Dermot Boylan, ELRIG’s General Manager. “Delegates are often confronted with a wide range of differing technologies at the show. To win the prize, you need to impress a variety of delegates with differing interests. To win the prize for the second time in a row is as yet unparalleled.”
About PharmaDiagnostics NV
PharmaDiagnostics NV develops label-free screening technology with the unique capability in its market of operating without the need for specialized hardware. The technology is broadly enabling and applicable to a range of applications including: receptor-ligand binding; enzymatic reactions; antibody screening and ADME. The assays are very sensitive and have the potential for very high throughput. The company is focused upon licensing its technology for use in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and also offers bespoke assay development services. In addition the company is seeking collaborations to develop applications in compound screening, particularly fragment screening and antibody screening. PharmaDiagnostics’ novel technology platform, SoPRano(TM), is based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and noble metal nanoparticles, and is run on standard laboratory equipment.
The company, based in the Z1 Research Park in Zellik, near Brussels, was founded in 2007. It has raised more than EUR 4.0 million (USD 5.6M) in two rounds of venture funding and EUR 100,000 in grants from IWT (Instituut voor de aanmoediging van innovatie door Wetenschap & Technologie in Vlaanderen), a Flemish innovation agency.
About ELRIG
ELRIG (European Laboratory Robotics Interest Group) is a rapidly growing special interest group focused on robotics applications in the laboratory. It is a not for profit organization, whose primary purpose is to provide a communication forum for users and vendors within the scientific research, development or production community (industrial and academic), within which members may be educated and network with other members, thus increasing their awareness of automation techniques and products used for scientific research, development or production.
ELRIG’s membership consists of scientists and engineers interested in robotics and programmable automation and users and vendors of equipment and accessories in this field. The group holds meetings in which our members’ experiences in automation are presented and vendors exhibit their latest technology.
Lynne Chapman ANDREW LLOYD & ASSOCIATES http://www.ala.com lynne@ala.com
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