Pioneer in automated, high-throughput monoclonal antibody selection technology announces proteomic initiative with a leading pharmacogenomics institute for use in cardiovascular pharmacogenomics

BRANFORD, Conn.–Affomix, the pioneer in digital proteomic reagents for next generation molecular assays and the leader in automated, high-throughput monoclonal antibody selection technology, today announced a collaboration with the internationally recognized University of Montreal Pharmacogenomics Centre (PGx Centre) and the Montreal Heart Institute.

“Having the ability to consistently measure these cardiovascular proteins represents a key first step in identifying important biomarkers that will help us better understand atherosclerosis and how patients respond to certain medications”

One of the PGx Centre’s key strategies is to use diverse genomic and proteomic platforms to discover novel biomarkers that are predictive of drug efficacy and toxicity. Once validated with the assistance of the PGx Centre, these biomarkers will be readily transferable to the clinical setting for providing improved personalized care to patients and guidance to health professionals based on appropriate selection and dosing of drugs.

In a proof of principle test of its strategy, the Centre has identified a panel of proteins that it believes to be useful in predicting and evaluating response to novel anti-atherosclerotic agents in patients with cardiovascular disease. Affomix and the PGx Centre will work together to develop reagents that will enable the quantitative multiplexed profiling of these strategic proteins. “The field of pharmacogenomics has been hindered by its inability to determine complex proteomic signatures for prediction and determination of patient responses to treatment,” said Dr. Michael Phillips, Director of the PGx Centre. “Having the ability to consistently measure these cardiovascular proteins represents a key first step in identifying important biomarkers that will help us better understand atherosclerosis and how patients respond to certain medications”, said Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Research Center at the Montreal Heart Institute. Dr. Phillips continued, “We are pleased to be working with Affomix because they have the ability to produce a large number of high quality antibodies in a format suitable for quantitative, multiplexed protein analysis. This will allow us to produce superior assays that could identify biomarkers that could further the field of personalized medicine.”

“Our commercialization plan at Affomix has been to align the Company’s unique antibody-based capabilities with existing high-throughput, multi-analysis platforms, including next generation sequencing technologies, thus providing quantitative proteome data to complement state-of-the-art genomic analyses. “ stated John Boyce, Head of Business Development for Affomix and co-Founder of Delphi Bio. “We believe that the combination of our technological skills with the considerable clinical and informatics expertise of the Montreal Heart Institute could truly unlock the promise of pharmacogenomics.”

About Affomix

Affomix is an emerging leader in the antibody technology space, with high throughput methodologies to select, at an unprecedented rate, against native epitopes as well as post translationally modified proteins. These proprietary technologies will allow the company to achieve its ultimate objective of generating the human AffomeTM, a comprehensive set of antibodies that can be used to detect and quantify all proteins in the human proteome.

Utilizing these and other proprietary technologies, Affomix is positioned to commercialize and enable the commercialization of products that are at the convergence of genomics and proteomics.