Partnership Formed to Support New Drug Discovery Technology

Artel (Westbrook, ME, USA) and IonGate Biosciences announced a strategic partnership to support the growing application of IonGate's (Frankfurt, Germany) drug discovery technology. The German biotechnology company will leverage Artel's local infrastructure, customer relationships, and market knowledge to increase the exposure and use of its discovery systems and assay development services in North America.

The partnership will focus on IonGate's SURFE2R technology, which enables more effective research involving drug targets such as membrane transporters and ligand-gated ion channels.

Membrane transport proteins play an important role in numerous biologic functions, and they have been linked to cardiac, neurologic, and metabolic disorders; however, these proteins represent a relatively unexplored segment of the drug discovery market. The previous lack of technology for efficient transporter screening has led pharmaceutical companies to focus the majority of their research initiatives on other targets. Ligand-gated ion channel proteins, while more frequently targeted, typically are also subject to less-than-optimal screening methods. IonGate's SURFE2R (SURFace Electrogenic Event Reader) technology represents a significant advance toward more efficient screening of transporters as well as ligand-gated ion channels.

"Transporter-focused drug discovery initiatives are poised for rapid growth worldwide, and the U.S. demand for our SURFE2R technology is rising,” said Dr. Thiemo Gropp Ph.D., Managing Director, IonGate Biosciences, GmbH. "With Artek's support and market expertise, we will be able to deliver the same personalized support to our customers in North America as we deliver to our customers in Europe.”

"We chose Artel because of the company's strong relationships with biopharmaceutical companies, highly skilled staff, and deep understanding of our customers' needs,” said Wolfgang Lerch, president, IonGate Biosciences, Inc. "Our companies' synergistic cultures and strong customer-focused orientations will allow us to bring an unparalleled combination of excellent service and technology to the drug discovery industry.”

IonGate's systems are powerful tools for researchers in large pharmaceutical companies as well as academic environments. The systems are valuable for core essential testing, early-stage screening, ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) studies, and are able to meet the required throughput. A "label-free therefore of higher value, for a growing array of protein targets. The core of this technology is an electrode biochip that measures the electrical activity of membrane-bound proteins. This activity is observed through measurement of the capacitive charging of the sensor chip by ionic species as they are actively transported across the membrane by the protein targets of interest.

IonGate Biosciences develops, produces, and markets innovative screening technologies to investigate transporters and is the worldwide leader in this new area.

Transporters are essential for the metabolic functions of the cell, data processing in the entire organism, and play a fundamental role in the health of humans. Due to their difficult experimental accessibility, transporters are underrepresented in current drug screening processes. Now, IonGate's original product, SURFE2R One, is joined by the SURFE2R Workstation 500 to provide highly precise functional screening of transporters in the higher-throughput pharmaceutical discovery and development environments. IonGate provides total system solutions, encompassing disposables and reagents, consulting services that include the design of assays and customized applications, and contract laboratory services.

Artel's technology, measurement systems, and value-added services are utilized by life-science laboratories to maximize productivity and ensure quality. The Artel MVS and PCS are very accurate, precise, and easy-to-use systems for achieving data integrity in any process requiring liquid handling and volume measurement. Artel services include liquid handling, quality assurance support and consultation, pipetting technique training and certification for pipette users and laboratory managers, and liquid handler performance verification services for automated laboratories.


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