Jun 23 2009
BRAHMS Aktiengesellschaft, conducts researches, develops, produces and markets innovative diagnostic biomarkers, and Lumiphore Inc., a biotechnology leader in new proprietary fluorescent metal-lanthanide technology for use in high-value applications, announced that they have signed an agreement on incorporation of Lumiphore's Lumi4(R)-Tb complexes in BRAHMS diagnostic tests.
Under the agreement, BRAHMS together with its subsidiary Cezanne, developer and manufacturer of KRYPTOR automated diagnostic solutions, has the non-exclusive rights to incorporate Lumi4(R) technology into current and future diagnostic tests and the exclusive rights to use the technology in diagnostic tests for Down's Syndrome including Trisomy 21, 13 and 18, Triploidy, Translocation, and Mosaicism.
"Lumiphore's goal is to bring the benefits of lanthanide-based homogenous assays to the diagnostic markets, from central labs to point-of-care applications. Detection sensitivity and simplicity of use as well as material cost reductions in reagent use, labor, and reader platforms are all benefits of Lumiphore's new reporter technology," said Steve Blose Lumiphore's Chief Business Officer.
"Using Lumi4(R)-Tb in the reader technology of our diagnostic tests will provide multiple benefits for BRAHMS. Thus we will take Lumi4(R)-Tb into consideration for the development of future analysis systems, both in laboratories and point-of-care-formats," said Ansgar Schmitt, BRAHMS' Vice President Business Development.
BRAHMS' KRYPTOR analysis systems can currently perform various analyses in random-access operations using TRACE (Time Resolved Amplified Cryptate Emission) technology, based on Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET). - FRET uses two fluorophores as a donor and an acceptor. The energy transfer between these two occurs when in nanometer scale proximity, which allows accurate measurement of molecular interactions. BRAHMS is using Nobel Prize winning cyrptand donor chemistry (J.M. Lehn, 1987) and will use Lumiphore's next generation terbium-donors in some of its future assays. "Using Lumi4(R)-Tb to replace the current Europium Cryptate will not only increase sensitivity of BRAHMS diagnostic tests, but will also allow the development of multiplexed assays - measuring 3-4 parameters in one test sample - be possible," explained Emmanuel Bois, Chief Executive Officer of Cezanne. In daily routine this would spare patients the burden of repeated blood withdrawal and in the same time save time and costs for the hospital.
Lumi4(R) complexes are a new class of fluorescent-metal lanthanide detection reagents based on technology patented by Professor Kenneth N. Raymond and coworkers at the University of California, Berkeley. Lanthanides are exceptional due to their long fluorescent lifetime delays that enable time gating and a dramatic drop in background noise when sensitized by the appropriate organic cage. This unique patent family is focused on a novel cage structure surrounding the terbium ion which enables them to be used as extremely efficient time resolved fluorescence (TRF) reporters, and fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) donors in proximity binding assays. These complexes have long emission lifetimes and offer a number of major advantages over existing fluorophores used for detection, including very high signal-to-noise ratio, stability, elimination of photobleaching, and multiplexing.
This is the fourth strategic partnership reached by Lumiphore in the past three years. Previous partnerships include Cis Bio International (www.htrf.com/company/partners/) for the drug discovery research market; Echelon Biosciences Inc. (www.echelon-inc.com) for novel cancer assays involving phospholipid signaling; and Biophor Diagnostics Inc. for diagnostic tests for drugs of abuse.