KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 14): Kuala Lumpur-based Sengenics has acquired UK-based Oxford Gene Technology’s (OGT) protein array technology, a patented auto-antibody profiling platform.

The platform was spun out from research that was commercialised as a joint collaboration between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in 1996.

Sengenics is a genomics and proteomics-based research and diagnostics company, with a range of patented technologies and products that are marketed to pharmaceutical companies, scientists and hospitals.

In a statement last Friday (Sept 11), Sengenics said it anticipated that the acquisition would strengthen the company’s foothold in the Proteomics market and provide its customers added flexibility to leverage this exciting technology to model the immune system.

Sengenics' chief science advisor Professor Jonathan Blackburn said the role of immune system dysfunction in cancers, as well as in acute responses in microbial infections and failed drug clinical trials, was increasingly well recognised today, as evidenced by recent high profile publications in major journals.

“In addition, many other conditions, including Autism, Parkinson’s and metabolic disorders, are also thought to result from abnormal autoimmune responses. The broad clinical applications of the Immunome protein array in profiling and quantifying differential autoimmune responses in disease and treatment, therefore convinced Sengenics to acquire this unique technology from OGT,” said Blackburn.

He said Sengenics had already utilised the Immunome technology with a very high success rate for more than 50 studies in the USA, Europe and Asia.

“Most collaborators have moved on to validate their findings and establish IP positions relating to protein biomarkers,” he added.

OGT's chief executive officer, Dr Mike Evans, said the protein array platform offered a unique approach for the identification of biomarkers for human disease.

Blackburn said Sengenics would be offering Immunome, both as a product and as a service.

Immunome protein microarray slides and associated reagents, and software will be available for purchase by customers to run in their own lab. Customers can also choose to send samples to one of Sengenics labs. Patents and/or biomarkers can also be licensed and used for a defined disease or purpose.