Strategic Diagnostics to launch antibody-generating device

By Angela McDaniels

Seattle, Jan. 4 - Strategic Diagnostics Inc. said it has successfully completed customer trials for its Genomic Antibodies product, a proprietary approach to antibody generation that allows research organizations to identify therapeutic or diagnostic protein targets, and will introduce the product commercially during the first quarter.

The evaluation was conducted using 14 investigators from the academic, biotech and pharmaceutical sectors. The investigators selected 24 genes that they thought might encode proteins of interest to their research and development efforts.

Strategic Diagnostics said the evaluation found that:

• The company was able to return finished product to customers in 76 days or less - 30% faster than the time required for delivery of an antibody developed using traditional methods.

• The Genomic Antibodies technology platform provides the same speed advantages regardless of the number of antibodies being produced.

• The Genomic Antibodies process is equally or more effective when producing antibodies for "difficult" antigen targets when compared with other, more time-consuming and expensive methods.

"These results, while early, validate the capability of the technology platform we are developing. We believe this platform will position Strategic Diagnostics to realize substantial growth associated with the importance of antibodies in drug discovery, diagnostics and academic research," Matthew Knight, president and chief executive officer, said in a company news release.

"By using Strategic Diagnostics 's Genomic Antibodies technology, I was able to start immunization using only the reported DNA sequences and without the need to express protein in my laboratory," Keith A. Reimann of Harvard Medical School said in the release.

"The performance of Genomic Antibodies to my protein antigen equaled or exceeded antibodies obtained by conventional protein immunization. Eliminating the need to prepare and ship antigen prior to starting immunization results in useful antibodies, and therefore useful research data, on a much more accelerated timeline than when conventional methods are used."

The company estimated the total market opportunity for antibody services to be $300 million and growing at 20% annually.

Based in Newark, Del., Strategic Diagnostics develops, manufactures and markets biotechnology-based diagnostic testing and reagent systems.

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