BG Medicine and Applied Biosystems to Collaborate on Molecular Medicine Research
Waltham, MA and Foster City, CA – January 16, 2007 – BG Medicine Inc. and Applied Biosystems Group (NYSE: ABI), an Applera Corporation business, today announced that the companies have entered into a collaboration agreement in which they will work together to enhance biomarker discovery and development.
Under the terms of the agreement, BG Medicine will integrate life science technology from Applied Biosystems into its proteomic and metabolomic systems pharmacology workflows and begin to explore applications for Applied Biosystems’ genomic tools. The technology will be employed in several strategic initiatives and proprietary programs at BG Medicine over the next two years. As part of this collaboration, Applied Biosystems is expected to be able to evaluate how its technology fits into emerging high-throughput platforms and how it supports the evolving requirements of customers in this field.
Molecular medicine combines medical studies with biochemistry. It involves the study of proteins, metabolites and gene expression to better understand the effects of diseases and the potential effectiveness of new treatments. The use of biomarkers offers knowledge about the presence of disease and the role of the biological indicators to improve drug development, early detection of disease, treatment selection and early detection of treatment response.
“With the rapid emergence of molecular medicine and biomarker-guided drug development initiatives, there is an explosive demand for biomarker discovery and validation research as well as the platforms that will deliver these biomarkers to the market,” said Pieter Muntendam, MD, President and CEO of BG Medicine. “This broad collaboration with Applied Biosystems should allow us to jointly make important contributions to this new medical and drug development research.”
BG Medicine’s systems pharmacology approach enables molecular characterization of disease states and drug responses, helping global pharmaceutical companies to make critical R&D decisions. BG Medicine has been steadily scaling up its platforms over the last six years to establish unprecedented levels of biomarker discovery. BG Medicine has also validated and implemented Applied Biosystems’ proteomic biomarker discovery tools – including Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX’s mass spectrometers, software and Applied Biosystems’ iTRAQ™ reagents – over the past two years in an industrial setting. The industrialization of biomarker discovery and validation is a new development that is expected to help advance proteomics, in conjunction with metabolomics and genomics.
“Making biomarkers, proteomics, genomics and metabolomics more relevant and applicable on a wider scale in scientific and medical studies can help transform the processes of drug discovery and development,” said Laura Lauman, president for Applied Biosystems’ proteomics and small molecule division. “By gaining greater statistical confidence in the biological interpretation of results through the use of leading-edge technologies, scientists can further explore the use of biomarkers to unlock more effective ways to treat different diseases.”
About BG Medicine
BG Medicine develops and operates the industry’s only integrated, high-throughput, research platform to measure and understand biological changes of drug and disease effects within intact systems. The company’s proprietary method of generating and integrating multiple analytical platform data including proteomics and metabolomics with powerful bioinformatics and computational analysis enables BG Medicine to discover and qualify biomarkers and characterize molecular mechanisms of action. BG Medicine applies its capabilities for third-party funded research and internal molecular diagnostic discovery. For more information about BG Medicine please visit www.bg-medicine.com.
About Applera Corporation and Applied Biosystems
Applera Corporation consists of two operating groups. The Applied Biosystems Group serves the life science industry and research community by developing and marketing instrument-based systems, consumables, software, and services. Customers use these tools to analyze nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), small molecules, and proteins to make scientific discoveries and develop new pharmaceuticals. Applied Biosystems’ products also serve the needs of some markets outside of life science research, which we refer to as “applied markets,” such as the fields of: human identity testing (forensic and paternity testing); biosecurity, which refers to products needed in response to the threat of biological terrorism and other malicious, accidental, and natural biological dangers; and quality and safety testing, for example in food and the environment. Applied Biosystems is headquartered in Foster City, CA, and reported sales of $1.9 billion during fiscal 2006. The Celera Group is primarily a molecular diagnostics business that is using proprietary genomics and proteomics discovery platforms to identify and validate novel diagnostic markers, and is developing diagnostic products based on these markers as well as other known markers. Celera maintains a strategic alliance with Abbott for the development and commercialization of molecular, or nucleic acid-based, diagnostic products, and it is also developing new diagnostic products outside of this alliance. Through its genomics and proteomics research efforts, Celera is also discovering and validating therapeutic targets, and it is seeking strategic partnerships to develop therapeutic products based on these discovered targets. Information about Applera Corporation, including reports and other information filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is available at http://www.applera.com, or by telephoning 800.762.6923. Information about Applied Biosystems is available at http://www.appliedbiosystems.com.
For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.
Applera, Applied Biosystems, AB (design) and Celera are registered trademarks and iTRAQ is a trademark of Applera Corporation or its subsidiaries in the US and/or certain other countries.
