Metabometrix and Waters Sign Agreement
Waters Corporation and Metabometrix signed a three-year collaboration agreement aimed at providing drug discovery scientists with new solutions for metabonomics studies. As part of this agreement, Waters and Metabometrix will share intellectual property and look for ways to combine proprietary technologies to serve the needs of pharmaceutical scientists.
Metabonomics characterizes key time-related biochemical changes in animals and humans caused by a variety of physiological interventions and disease stressors. Applications include the characterization and prediction of drug toxicity diagnosis and monitoring of clinical disease, evaluation of therapeutic intervention and for understanding the effects of genetic modifications.
Professor Jeremy Nicholson, Chief Scientific Officer of Metabometrix said, “Of course we are extremely pleased with this development, this will allow us to build on our metabolic experience generated in the NMR spectroscopic arena. We confidently expect that the novel integration of advanced NMR and MS technologies will allow problems previously undecipherable complexity to be resolved in important disease areas”
Waters will provide Metabometrix with LC/MS instrumentation including Alliance( HT LC, and Q-Tof micro(tm) mass spectrometer systems along with, novel chemistries and methods developed specifically for metabonomics studies. This will allow Metabometrix to generate LC/MS data in tandem with their current Flow-injection and magic angle spinning NMR capabilities. In return Metabometrix will help to further develop Waters metabonomics technology and give Waters company access to Metabometrix’ data handling, informatics and chemometric modeling expertise.
Metabometrix’s proprietary platform of metabonomics technologies generates, classifies and interprets metabolic information from biological fluids, cells and tissues. The technology has the potential to redefine drug discovery and development from lead molecule selection to marketing of clinically successful drugs.
In addition to its own intrinsic power, metabonomics promises to furnish a real world and commercially applicable dimension to the pivotal sciences of genomics, proteomics and molecular diagnostics.
Beverly Kenny, Metabonomics Program Manager, of Waters Corporation commented, “We are delighted to announce this collaboration between ourselves and the accomplished scientists at Metabometrix. We welcome the opportunity to advance LC/MS technology that will boost pharmaceutical R&D productivity and facilitate making early diagnosis and specialized medicine realities.”