FEI and Sidec Technologies will collaborate on the commercialisation of protein tomography based on Sidec's software and intellectual property, and FEI's transmission electron microscopes (TEMs)
Protein tomography is a new technology developed to address critical issues around drug target validation and translational medicine in the pharmaceutical industry, improving target validation processes and shortening development time for new pharmaceuticals.
Based on current market practices, protein tomography is estimated to be a US$200 million market with the potential to grow several fold within a few years.
"Understanding drug targets and the disease mechanisms on a molecular level is extremely difficult, resulting in severe problems when translating bench research into human biology," commented Hans Johansson, president and CEO of Sidec.
"Many drugs fail when they progress from pre-clinical studies to clinical trials".
"Imaging and comparing drug targets from different species using Protein Tomography provides insight into the molecular differences underlying this attrition." FEI has led the development of cryo electron microscopy for the imaging of biological structures in close collaboration with many top level academic groups in Europe and the USA.
Sidec is pioneering the field of protein imaging using cryo electron tomography and has several research collaborations with global pharmaceutical companies.
Protein tomography consists of advanced electron microscopy instrumentation, proprietary data acquisition and reconstruction software as well as scientific expertise to enable the imaging and analysis of individual protein molecules in cells and tissues.
FEI and Sidec offer this as a service through Sidec, as an on-premises service, or through a software and other intellectual property license arrangement combined with a TEM system sale.
"FEI is very pleased to offer this advanced solution for protein tomography with Sidec," commented Vahe Sarkissian, president and CEO of FEI.
"We have a long-standing reputation for providing enabling tools for life science".
"As we move from the genomics to the proteomics era, we will continue to identify customer needs and work to deliver the advanced applications that our growing and diverse life science market, which we refer to as nanobiology, demands."
