PerkinElmer
CSO Neil Cook on Agilix Acquisition
By Malorye A. Branca, Editor-in-Chief, PharmaWeek
On March 9, PerkinElmer announced
the acquisition of Agilix Corporation's proprietary isobaric mass
tag technology for proteomics. The technology allows simultaneous
quantification of proteins from multiple samples, and PerkinElmer
CSO, Neil Cook, believes it is a key addition to his company's
growing proteomics portfolio. Below, he talks to PharmaWeek
Editor-in-Chief, Malorye A. Branca, about this acquisition and
what might be next.
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Neil Cook
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PharmaWeek:
Why this acquisition now?
Neil Cook:
We were reviewing a number of reagent-based technologies for
possible acquisition. Then we came across Agilix, and we could see
how this lets people do experiments that are otherwise very hard
to do. At PerkinElmer, we want a comprehensive tool offering that
gives people options. We are looking for technologies that not
only improve what we are doing now but also break boundaries, and
this particular tool does that.
PharmaWeek:
How does it do that?
Neil Cook: Without
this type of system, you are putting multiple samples through
multiple workflows, and the statistical variability is hard to
control. The isobaric mass tag technology avoids that. You mix all
the samples together, and they are all going through the same
workflow. So you can do multiple samples or even samples from
different time courses. You could take a subject's blood on days
one, three, and five, and just label and mix those together. Then
you can interrogate the data to see what happened to your protein
on any of those days.
Proteomics is usually black and
white. You are looking at before and after, or at with and
without. Now, we can look at several samples at the same time or
over time. This takes us from a bilateral view to a
multi-parameter view: It is high content proteomics. And the
labeling technology is elegant in its simplicity.
It is also very versatile, and we
can make many activation chemistries for it. Hopefully, in the
future, we will be able to do phosphorylated proteomics. The
flexibility of this technology will let us launch a whole series
of other new products. Right now, we are prioritizing our ideas,
and we should be launching some of these within 6-12 months.
PharmaWeek:
And how does this fit with PerkinElmer's portfolio?
Neil Cook:
Proteomics is a substantial interest to us. We have a full range
of tools for traditional 2D gel analysis, from sample prep
up-front through the 2D process. The Agilix technology is a great
complement in terms of expanding our offerings, and we will
continue to build on our proteomics tool set in the future.
PharmaWeek:
Are you still aggressively looking for more technologies?
Neil Cook:
We see the potential for a series of acquisitions around enabling
technologies, particularly in proteomics: I mean technologies and
IP that really expand the researchers' capabilities as well as
those that tuck in nicely with what we have. We are looking for a
reagents capability in proteomics and technical enablement.
Don't expect our scouting and
acquisition to end with this deal. We see a lot of areas where
there are unmet needs, particularly in proteomics and several
other areas where you will see activity from us in the future.
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Copyright 2006, Cambridge Healthtech Institute. All Rights
Reserved.
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