Pharmacoproteomics play

Oxford GlycoSciences plc has added a second leg to its proteomics platform with last week's deal with Glaxo Wellcome plc, which takes OGS toward the clinical development step in the value chain. In fact, this is the second deal OGS has cut to use its proteomics expertise to look for biomarkers in diseased tissue and thus provide hints for therapeutics and diagnostics. But whereas the first deal with Pfizer Inc. (PFE) only focuses on Alzheimer's disease (see BioCentury Sept. 20, 1999), the new deal with GLX's clinical development group is focused on biomarkers for nine diseases in three therapeutic areas: four in cancer, four in arthritis and one in migraine, according to CFO Stephen Parker (see B7).

According to its LSE IPO prospectus in April 1998, OGS (Oxford, U.K.) already planned to go beyond providing HTS-ready proteomics tools involving a combination of 2D electrophoresis and mass-spectroscopy. The GLX deal uses fundamentally the same proteomics platform to compare the same proteins in healthy and diseased tissue at several levels of structure. Differences made apparent based on the comparison represent biomarkers. This moves OGS forward into the area of clinical development, which Parker described as "pharmacoproteomics."...