Aponetics: Put out the green light
Oncology is a crowded space, and a company wishing to stand out in the field must have good targets and a technology that can provide a steady stream of novel compounds. Aponetics AG says it has established a screening platform that makes the discovery of novel mechanisms and targets, as well as lead identification, a fast and easy process that could lead to a continuous flow of three to five development candidates per year.
Aponetics' approach is based on the observation made by its academic founders that the signal strength of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) in a GFP-transfected cell correlates directly with the proliferative, apoptotic or necrotic status of the cell after exposure to a test compound. The company has developed the technology into an industrialized platform to screen substance libraries for compounds able to induce apoptosis in more than 20 different human tumor cell lines...