Collaboration and Licensing Agreement Expanded to Exploit Isoforms as Diagnostic Markers

Pressure BioSciences, Inc (PBI; South Eastern, MA, USA) and Target Discovery, Inc. (TDI; Palo Alto, California, USA) are expanding their strategic license agreement and collaboration in support of TDI's planned offering of personalized medicine, clinical diagnostic services. The nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing license is for the in vitro diagnostic services testing for the detection of proteins that may be regarded as biomarkers of ovarian and other cancers, including any number of specific or all protein isoforms.

The signing of the expanded strategic technology license and supply agreements give TDI the right to use PBI's Pressure Cycling Technology (PCT) platform for their planned entry into the clinical diagnostics testing market.

The planned commercial diagnostic services will initially target critical needs in treatment selection guidance for ovarian cancer. Until now, PBI's PCT platform has been available for research use only.

The original collaboration between the two companies enabled combination of PBI's PCT Platform with TDI's proprietary reagents for the extraction of membrane protein biomarkers from human tissue. Such biomarkers include specific modified proteins (isoforms) that were previously very difficult to extract from tissue in a form suitable for diagnostic testing. The companies believe that the ability to rapidly extract and recover diagnostically and commercially useable protein isoforms from cell membranes is unique to PCT and the TDI reagents, and that this capability positions the companies to exploit this critical class of membrane proteins as diagnostic biomarkers.

"Membrane proteins play key biological roles in cancer, in drug resistance, and in viral infections, yet until now scientists have been virtually unable to use this important class of biomarkers for diagnostic and prognostic testing," commented Dr. Luke V. Schneider, TDI's CSO. "These proteins are tightly bound within the cell membrane, making them very difficult to extract and recover for scientific study. The extraction of membrane proteins from tissue samples typically requires the use of aggressive physical and chemical methods that yield useless protein fragments, often in solutions that are completely incompatible for laboratory testing. Consequently, although membrane proteins and their isoforms play vital roles in human health and disease, they have never been conveniently available for use as disease biomarkers."

Target Discovery, Inc., develops the next generation of clinical diagnostics, offering higher-value molecular insights for disease management and diagnosis. The company focuses on creating protein isoform diagnostics to better guide therapeutic choices and lower overall treatment costs for cancer and other diseases.

Pressure BioSciences, Inc. is focused on the development, marketing, and sale of proprietary laboratory instrumentation and associated consumables based on PCT. PBI currently focuses its efforts on the development and sale of PCT-enhanced sample preparation systems for mass spectrometry, biomarker discovery, biotherapeutics characterization, vaccine development, soil and plant biology, forensics, histology, and counter-bioterror applications.

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Pressure BioSciences, Inc.
Target Discovery, Inc