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Target Discovery and Eastern Virginia Medical School Announce Collaboration to Develop Prostate Cancer Clinical Assays

Posted on: Tuesday, 21 March 2006, 09:01 CST

Target Discovery Inc. announces a collaboration with the Virginia Prostate Center at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia to develop clinical assays, which will provide critical information on tumor aggressiveness and help to guide clinicians and their prostate cancer patients toward an appropriate course of treatment. The first phase of the study involves validating protein isoform biomarkers using Target Discovery's patented mass defect technology. Target Discovery will then integrate validated protein isoform biomarkers into its proprietary Isonostics(TM) clinical platform. Eastern Virginia Medical School will provide both retrospective patient samples and mass spectrometric analysis to support the biomarker and assay validation studies.

"Approximately 230,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed annually, yet comparatively few of these cases are cancers that merit aggressive treatments, such as radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. Unfortunately, current diagnostics are unable to differentiate between aggressive and non-aggressive prostate cancer, which leads to unnecessary invasive treatments and complications for the vast majority of prostate cancer patients that have indolent, non-aggressive cancers," said O. John Semmes, Ph.D., Scientific Director of the Virginia Prostate Center, Director of the George L. Wright, Jr. Center for Biomedical Proteomics, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology, and Professor of Pathology and Anatomy at Eastern Virginia Medical School. "Research collaborations between academia and innovative biotechnology companies, such as Target Discovery, will accelerate the validation of this important new class of isoform-level clinical biomarkers and the development of higher-value clinical diagnostics for cancer and other diseases."

"Recent scientific research is revealing strong correlations between the presence and ratio of protein isoforms versus cancer diagnosis, staging and therapeutic response, with important quality of life implications to the patient and major potential cost savings for the health care system," said Jeffrey N. Peterson, CEO of Target Discovery. "We are excited to combine our technological expertise with Eastern Virginia Medical School's long history in prostate cancer protein biomarker research, for the development of a next-generation prostate cancer test offering prognostic insight and improved therapy guidance for doctors and patients."

About Mass Defect Technology and Isonostics(TM)

A small number of coding genes, approximately 22,000, in the body are responsible for producing a million different proteins, which perform most biological processes. In order to obtain protein diversity, elaborate mechanisms employed by the cell modify parent proteins to create many protein variants or isoforms. Historically, diagnostic tests that target protein biomarkers have been unable to distinguish between the multiple isoforms of a protein captured from a clinical sample. Target Discovery's Mass Defect technology (U.S. patent No. 6,962,818) uses isotope-differentiated binding energy shift tags (IDBEST(TM)) to rapidly validate the levels of clinically relevant isoforms in known biomarkers in retrospective studies. Based on IDBEST(TM) evidence of isoforms that improve the clinical effectiveness of a biomarker, Target Discovery will patent the use of such protein isoforms for the development of diagnostic tests, Isonostics(TM).

Target Discovery's Isonostic(TM) products are able to quantify protein isoforms created from both genetic mutations, including single nucleotide polymorphisms and splice variants, as well as isoforms formed from a much wider variety of post-translational modifications, which are not currently differentiated by existing clinical diagnostic products.

About Target Discovery, Inc.

Target Discovery is developing the next generation of clinical diagnostics, offering higher-value molecular insights for the diagnosis and management of disease. The company's initial commercial focus is on isoform-level protein biomarkers and diagnostics (Isonostics(TM)) for cancer. The company engages in funded collaborations with partners, for application of its unique isoform-level technologies in other disease areas and in theranostic applications (diagnostic testing to select or disqualify patients for a specific drug therapy). The company is based in Palo Alto, California. More information is available at www.targetdiscovery.com.

Source: Business Wire

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