Sengenics set to launch cancer biomarker service with OGT

Sengenics has announced an agreement with Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) to introduce a global cancer biomarker discovery and clinical trial monitoring service.

It will exist as OGT's proprietary full-length functional protein array platform and is expected to be rolled out onto the market by the second quarter of this year from a purpose-built facility.

As a result, the premises will be the first outside Oxford that is able to run the OGT developed protein array technology.

It has been used by a number of pharma companies and research institutions for immuno-monitoring of drug and microbial response.

Dr Arif Anwar, executive director at Sengenics, said: "We are very excited at the opportunity to expand our service offering globally with the unique protein array technology from OGT.

"We have already utilised this technology with a very high success rate for more than 20 projects in Asia. What is particularly encouraging is how quickly our collaborators have moved on to validate findings and establish IP."

Mr Anwar went on to say that every protein on the array is correctly folding and functional is the key factor that has led to the success.

Dr John Anson, executive vice president research and development at OGT, also commented on the technology, claiming that it has proven to be highly successful when it comes to identifying promising diagnostics signatures for cancers and autoimmune diseases.

"In order to better serve the Asian market, we will be enabling Sengenics, our strategic partner in Asia, to provide biomarker discovery services based on our proprietary protein array platform in their own facility," Mr Anson explained.

Sengenics was founded in 2008 and has gone on to focus on developing research collaborations and diagnostics facilities across Asia.

It has formed an exclusive strategic partnership with Oxford Gene Technology in Asia, with the company aiming to develop its own IP.

Posted by Ben Evans