Life Sciences Firm Announces New Top Five Firm Partnership
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A York-based life sciences firm has announced a new deal with one of the top five pharmaceutical companies in the UK to help it develop new optimer binders, used in applications such as therapeutic targeting and affinity chromatography.
Aptamer has revealed that it has agreed contracts for two projects to develop optimers with the unnamed top five partner, one worth £175,000 involving immunohistochemistry reagents and the other £60,000 for optimer binders for use with speciality enzymes, which will be adapted for the partner’s life science kits.
All of these will be developed for life science kits with a royalty-bearing licence when they are commercialised, something that could happen as soon as next year.
While the partner has not been named and further details of the arrangement have not been disclosed due to a confidentiality clause, it does represent repeat business with a firm Aptamer Group already enjoys a working relationship with.
Welcoming the news, Aptamer’s chief technical officer Arron Tolley said the deal “validates the power of the Optimer platform to solve intractable problems associated with traditional ligands like antibodies in the area of immunohistochemistry and supports our new business and patenting strategy”.
He highlighted the importance of life science sales in Aptamer’s capacity to make such deals, noting that in the past year, the company’s new management has “successfully rebuilt the sale pipeline”.
The deals are the latest in a number of recent partnerships the company has become involved with, one of the most notable of which was a deal worth up to £465,000 signed with Timser Group last month for optimer binders that will be used in the world’s first cervical cancer blood test.
It stated that not only could this test mean women would not have to undergo uncomfortable smear tests, but that the diagnostic capacity is more sensitive and can lead to earlier detection of cancer.